Modernizing Our Court System (but Don’t Attend Trial from Your Car) with Hon. Scott Schlegel

February 15th, 2023|Categories: ELP, Emerging Litigation & Risk, HB Tort Notes|Tags: , , , , |

The judicial system is overburdened for a number of reasons, and greater efficiency is a must if court systems are to achieve their important objectives. Technology and openness to all that it offers is a key solution, something that was tried, tested and proven during the Covid pandemic which closed courthouses and law offices around the nation. Along with technology, improvements can be made by reexamining their orthodoxies about how things should be done based on decades of "that's how we've always done it." This is a matter of importance to judges, lawyers, plaintiffs, defendants, and numerous others whose lives are impacted directly or indirectly when either the civil or criminal justice systems are inefficient, cumbersome, costly, confusing, slow, and even inaccessible. If only we had an example of at least one judge who is trying to do something about it. But wait ... Listen to my interview with the Hon. Scott Schlegel who presides over criminal civil and domestic matters in Louisiana's 24th Judicial District Court in Jefferson Parish. Judge Schlegel was elected to the bench in 2013, and quickly earned a reputation as a modern judge using technology to bring his court into the digital age, even before the pandemic forced the change on other jurists. He partnered with tech companies to develop efficiency tools like chat bots and [...]

Under Pressure: Courts and Lawyers Trying to Deal With It with Diana Manning

January 6th, 2023|Categories: ELP, Emerging Litigation & Risk, News|Tags: , , , , |

The pressure on trial lawyers, judges, plaintiffs, defendants, and court systems is only increasing. The backlog of cases in New Jersey, for example, nearly quadrupled between February 2020 and 2021, the first year of the pandemic, according to NJ Spotlight News (NJSN). The state is also facing a historic shortage of jurists, NJSN reported, “leading to overworked judges, huge case backlogs and nearly 7,000 defendants in jail without bail, some 500 of them for more than two years despite a law that essentially requires a trial within two years for anyone detained." As reported by NJSN, one court official told the state Assembly Budget Committee about the impact of the pandemic on the court system: “Buildings were closed to most in-person trials for more than a year, although other proceedings continued virtually. The business closures and high unemployment led to a housing crisis that resulted in more than 46,000 pending cases that involve landlord-tenant issues . . . . But with all courts open and staff back to work in person, it is impossible to eliminate the backlog of cases with so many open judge seats.” The problem is attributed to the state Senate, where the process is mired, even though the governor is making appointments. According to the National Counsel for State Courts, backlogs at one third of [...]

Announcing the Complex Litigation Ethics Conference

August 25th, 2022|Categories: Class Actions, Complex Business Litigation, HB Tort Notes, New Featured Post for Home Page, News|Tags: , , , , |

A leading academic and practitioner, Joshua P. Davis (davisj@usfca.edu) is a nationally recognized expert on legal ethics and class actions, as well as on artificial intelligence in the law, antitrust, civil procedure, free speech, and jurisprudence. He has published more than 30 scholarly articles and book chapters on these subjects and is currently writing a book on AI titled Unnatural Law, which will be published by Cambridge University Press. He is Research Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of Law, and a Shareholder of the Berger Montague PC law firm and Manager of its new San Francisco Bay Area Office. Before taking these posts, for more than 20 years Davis was a tenured Professor of Law at University of San Francisco Law School, where he also served as the Director of the Center for Law and Ethics. Davis is also a member of the Editorial Board of Advisors for the Journal on Emerging Issues in Litigation, published by Fastcase Full Court Press. Tom Hagy, Editor in Chief. An expert in civil procedure and federal courts, Professor Scott Dodson is the James Edgar Hervey Chair in Litigation and Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law at UC Hastings Law. He has published seven book titles, including The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Cambridge 2015) and New Pleading in [...]

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