Defense Counsel Journal articles from January 2005

Defense Counsel Journal archives from January 2005

The state of the IADC: very alive, very well and continuing to move ahead.(International Association of Defense Counsel)(President's Page)
January 1, 2005... WITH the close of the International Association of Defense Counsel fiscal year on October 31, 2004, this is a good time to discuss the current status of the IADC and where we are going in the immediate future. IADC's core purpose When...

Tort law reform in Australia: fundamental and potentially far-reaching change: following the Ipp Report, reforms are going forward in New South Wales, with the emerging result that runaway insurance costs are coming under control.
January 1, 2005... THE two years just past saw an intense period of unprecedented tort law reform in Australia. In 2002, claims from many sectors were that Australia was in the midst of a "public liability crisis" because of a legal system that was "out of...

Cross-jurisdictional requests for evidence: United States, England, European Union: American lawyers seeking evidence in England should connect with correspondent lawyers there to guide them through the necessary steps.
January 1, 2005... THIS article discusses the theory and practice of obtaining evidence for use by litigants in proceedings in the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively. It covers not just reciprocal evidence but also how an English court would...

Competition enforcement in the European Union: a three-way partnership: with Europe's modernized competition regime highlighting the importance of both public and private enforcement, companies are self-assessing.
January 1, 2005... THE FORMER European Commissioner for Competition Policy, Mario Monti, described the arrival of the European Union's new competition regime as a "a revolution in the way competition rules are enforced in the European Union." He was referring to...

E-discovery help may be on the way ... sort of: Civil Rules Advisory Committee proposal: the amendments address several issues, including inaccessible documents, privileged documents, third-party subpoenas and a sanctions safe harbor.
January 1, 2005... RULE 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure contains the noble goal that the civil rules should foster the "just, speedy, and inexpensive" determination of every action. When Rule 1 was drafted, personal computers were the vision of sci-fi...

Proposed national e-discovery standards and the Sedona principles: the Judicial Conference's proposed e-discovery rules generally reflect the Sedona Principles, but there is room for improvements in some respects.
January 1, 2005... THE U.S. Judicial Conference's Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure has placed a number of carefully crafted e-discovery amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure before the bench and bar for evaluation and comment. These...

Fast food or fat food: food manufacturer liability for obesity: before the courts and juries extend liability beyond reasonable limits, proactive legislation can balance rights of claimants and the food industry.
January 1, 2005... OBESITY contributes to the death of 300,000 people a year in the United States; only the use of tobacco causes more preventable deaths. (1) Overweight or obese persons are alleged to be at a heightened risk for a variety of serious and...

Punitive damages: achieving fairness and consistency after State Farm v. Campbell: despite its best efforts, the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion leaves many blank spaces and holes with which appellate courts have had to cope.
January 1, 2005... PUNITIVE damages have been a part of the American jurisprudence and have been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court for more than 150 years. (1) But that Court began to suggest the possibility of limiting such damages in 1988. (2) As businesses...

Disregarding manifest disregard: Watts shifts standard for vacating arbitrators' decisions: the Seventh Circuit seems to have discarded the manifest disregard of the law doctrine, which has been used to overturn arbitrators' decisions.
January 1, 2005... ARBITRATION can offer advantages over traditional litigation, including speed, economy, finality, confidentiality, flexibility, arbitrator expertise and neutrality of forum. (1) In contrast, arbitration's disadvantages include procedural...

Reviewing the law reviews.(Bibliography)
January 1, 2005... This is a selective bibliography of current law review literature of interest to defense counsel. Main articles are identified by naming the author or authors. The designations "Note," "Comment," etc. are as listed in the publication, with the...