American Civil Justice

No country has a greater proportion of lawyers as the United States, and in no other First World country do legal norms so closely affect the behavior of ordinary people. What in other countries is left to social norms or to common sense is often made the subject of legal rules in this country. Is the rest of the world to be faulted for its insufficient laws? Or has the United States injected excessive defensiveness into daily relations? Do federal and state rules of civil procedure strike the right balance between the dismissal of vexatious litigation and the vindication of reasonable claims? Is the overlap of federal and state laws an example of federalism at work or an excessive burden on business? Does the American civil damages regime provide efficient or excessive incentives to take care?

Common Sense about Risk	Philip Howard	Common Good
The Decline of Demurrer	Philip Howard
Discovery and Notice Pleading	George Priest	Yale Law
Class Actions, the Collateral Source Rule, and the Civil Jury	George Priest
Federalism and Preemption	George Priest
Punitive Damages, Emotional Distress	George Priest

Philip K. Howard is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and is the author of Life without Lawyers, The Collapse of the Common Good and The Death of Common Sense. George L. Priest is one of the foremost scholars in law-and-economics, and an expert on tort law. He is also co-director of Yale’s John M. Olin Center for Law, Economics and Public Policy.