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Watch Out
By Thomas J. McDennott, Jr.
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"Watch Out. /I their royal lords and ladies, helping ever, this led to some judges taking
Officer Pup to Krazy Kat just before build the infrastructure of power and over entire school districts and then
the brick hits. then sharing secondarily in the fruits on and on and on. Eventually, many
of that power. judges began to think this "adven-
This "secret," long obvious to trial turous" judging was heady stuff and
I
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saved his seat by forcing the courts judges. This approach is money. Not the CD to the judge and wait for the
to integrate the schools.) At least budgeting it, not appropriating it, not ruling.
three tactics to control the judiciary spending it. If Congress were to Caps on Legal Fees - Look what
have been implemented. The first has freeze the judiciaries' appropriations they are trying to do to the doctors
been to enact so many laws and write at current levels and continue in its and baseball players - and the pub-
so many regulations that the judicial efforts to federalize all criminal acts, lic likes doctors and baseball players.
system could not possibly cope with it could turn the federal courts into Greater and Greater Use of Pre-
the written law, much less be activ- exclusively criminal courts in a very recorded A udiovisual Materials in
ists. This has gone so far as to telling few years. the Courtroom - This is not for
judges how to judge, e.g, the sen- If this power issue goes beyond greater impact or clarity, but to save
tencing guidelines. But this approach Commentary and into. the public time.
has backfired. Now there are just press, it does not bode well for law- The Reemergence of the Mid-Size
more touchstones to bounce rulings yers. We are disliked by the public Firm - A few mega-firms will sur-
off of. The second has been to today because it is perceived we have vive, but economics dictates scaling
attempt to screen judges based on too much power and make too much back.
their political views, a sort of ac- money. If the media picks up on the The Development of Interna-
knowledgment of the legislative role Commentary piece and convinces tional Law - Multinational trans-
of the courts with an attempt to get the public that lawyers have even .actions are being negotiated and
them legislating the "right" way. This more power than anyone thought due implemented all over the globe, but
has not worked so well either, hu- to their unique access to that real whose law will apply and how will it
man nature being what it is. power of the courts, then the public be enforced? New international tri-
will force the legislators to curb that bunals with their own procedural law
power. Even more draconian steps are bound to arise, but the question
than we have seen to date will come. of substantive law remains open. Let's
The End of the Civil Jury Sys- hope it will be British-American com-
, If this power tem - It may be preserved for a monlaw.
The Battle of Intellectual Prop-
while for cases that touch on broad
public interests such as automobile erty - In the "Information Age" the
issue goes beyond accidents and product liability, but information is even more valuable
say good-by to the rest; all the juries than the means to deliver it. Watch
will be trying criminal cases. for increased disputes over rights to
Commentary [tal The Rise of Alternative Dispute information that heretofore were as-
Resolution - The civil cases have sumed to be in the public domain.
to go somewhere. Growing Regulation of Lawyers
the public press, Summary Trial Methods - If - Every Federal District Court now
they can do it on TV in ten minutes, has, or is developing, regulations to
it does not bode why should it take ten days in court? punish lawyers who make sexist or
As the public sees more.and more of ethnic slurs, in or out of the court-
the "People's Court" shows on TV room. A righteous cause, of course,
well for lawyers. ' (and they are proliferating), there but what's next?
will be a move to try this on cases I'm not really a pessimist. Indeed,
where the parties are paying the I think that the "challenges" of the
judgments themselves rather than next ten years are stimulating. I only
the TV production company. call your attention to the bricks that
But the third approach will work, Multimedia Trials --' Put it all on are flying and about to fly because
is working, is guaranteed to work, CD-ROM - witnesses, documents, it's a lawyer's job to anticipate, Isn't
and it affects lawyers as much as oral argument, everything - deliver it?
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