The American legal system has retained juries for civil trials, not only for personal injury cases, but also for all sorts of complex disputes, including antitrust and intellectual property cases. Having juries, however, has required the U.S. to develop special procedures to govern exactly what jurors are allowed to hear and what they are permitted to decide rather than judges deciding for themselves. For example, we have controls on what lawyers say and how they act in the courtroom, how witnesses may be handled, and so on. In the end, this reflects the doubts we have about just how sensibly juries will act after all. In addition, an elaborate "motion" practice now occurs before and during trial. These rules, are designed to dispose of cases, (or parts of cases) without having them decided by juries. In the U.S., we have both national law, state law and federal courts and state courts. Federal courts often decide cases based on state law, and within our states we often have court structures which themselves have overlapping jurisdictions. Here, all sorts of complex rules of civil procedure have been developed to govern the allocation of cases to the various courts. And so, a case can frequently be tried in one of two or more courtrooms. Because of the advantage to one side or the other of having the case heard in a specific way, the parties often seek to reveal aspects of these procedural rules to their advantage.
Monday, April 8, 2013
WHY IS CIVIL PROCEDURE IMPORTANT?
Why is procedure so important in America?
The American legal system has retained juries for civil trials, not only for personal injury cases, but also for all sorts of complex disputes, including antitrust and intellectual property cases. Having juries, however, has required the U.S. to develop special procedures to govern exactly what jurors are allowed to hear and what they are permitted to decide rather than judges deciding for themselves. For example, we have controls on what lawyers say and how they act in the courtroom, how witnesses may be handled, and so on. In the end, this reflects the doubts we have about just how sensibly juries will act after all. In addition, an elaborate "motion" practice now occurs before and during trial. These rules, are designed to dispose of cases, (or parts of cases) without having them decided by juries. In the U.S., we have both national law, state law and federal courts and state courts. Federal courts often decide cases based on state law, and within our states we often have court structures which themselves have overlapping jurisdictions. Here, all sorts of complex rules of civil procedure have been developed to govern the allocation of cases to the various courts. And so, a case can frequently be tried in one of two or more courtrooms. Because of the advantage to one side or the other of having the case heard in a specific way, the parties often seek to reveal aspects of these procedural rules to their advantage.
The American legal system has retained juries for civil trials, not only for personal injury cases, but also for all sorts of complex disputes, including antitrust and intellectual property cases. Having juries, however, has required the U.S. to develop special procedures to govern exactly what jurors are allowed to hear and what they are permitted to decide rather than judges deciding for themselves. For example, we have controls on what lawyers say and how they act in the courtroom, how witnesses may be handled, and so on. In the end, this reflects the doubts we have about just how sensibly juries will act after all. In addition, an elaborate "motion" practice now occurs before and during trial. These rules, are designed to dispose of cases, (or parts of cases) without having them decided by juries. In the U.S., we have both national law, state law and federal courts and state courts. Federal courts often decide cases based on state law, and within our states we often have court structures which themselves have overlapping jurisdictions. Here, all sorts of complex rules of civil procedure have been developed to govern the allocation of cases to the various courts. And so, a case can frequently be tried in one of two or more courtrooms. Because of the advantage to one side or the other of having the case heard in a specific way, the parties often seek to reveal aspects of these procedural rules to their advantage.
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Great information on why civil procedure is important. These rules make our court system work in todays society.
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