The civil jury has served as a pivotal institution in the United States’ social and constitutional structure since the founding. Despite this foundation, however, the majority of civil disputes today are resolved not by laypeople serving as jurors but through private and publicly funded settlement and arbitration proceedings. The result is a tragic loss of the demonstrable sociopolitical benefits of jury service.
With these points in mind, this program focuses on reforms for reviving the civil jury as an institution, emphasizing that efforts must focus on removing barriers to jury access and enhancing fair and accurate jury fact-finding.
Specifically, we offer the following research-based proposals:
1. Return to a jury-trial default rule;
2. Eliminate legislation capping the jury’s damage-setting authority;
3. Expand the sue of innovative procedural tracks, such as expended jury trial projects;
4. Ensure that juries represent the communities form which they are drawn;
5. Require the use of twelve-person civil juries;
6. Adopt active jury reforms.
Valerie P. Hans, Charles F. Rechlin Professor of Law, conducts empirical studies of law and the courts, and is one of the nation's leading authorities on the jury system. Trained as a social scientist, she has carried out extensive research and lectured around the globe on juries and jury reforms as well as the uses of social science in law.
She is the author or editor of 9 books and over 150 research articles. Current projects on the American jury include developing a new theory of damage awards, analyzing how jury service promotes civic engagement, and examining the impact of race in tort decisions. Professor Hans is also studying the diverse forms of citizen participation in legal decision making in other countries. Her research and that of others are summarized in a coedited book, Juries, Lay Judges, and Mixed Courts: A Global Perspective (2021). Other books include: The Psychology of Tort Law (2016); American Juries: The Verdict (2007); The Jury System: Contemporary Scholarship (2006); Business on Trial: The Civil Jury and Corporate Responsibility (2000); and Judging the Jury (1986).
Professor Hans is coeditor of the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Editor of the Annual Review of Law and Social Science, and past president of the Law and Society Association.
In June 2019, Professor Hans joined other law professors and social scientists in submitting an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court on the subject of jury unanimity (Ramos v. Louisana). The Supreme Court’s 2020 Ramos decision cited her work.
Richard Lorren Jolly was appointed to the Southwestern Law School faculty in 2021, he teaches in the areas of civil and criminal procedure, evidence, and torts. Professor Jolly brings nearly a decade of experience in legal practice, policy, and research into the classroom. This allows him to provide students with a learning experience focused on tying legal theories to their real-world applications.
Professor Jolly’s research primarily focuses on issues of public and private procedure. Specifically, he is interested in how parties customize procedures through contractual agreement in ways that can enhance or undermine the integrity of judicial institutions and the substantive development of law. As part of this theme, much of his writing focuses on the socio-political and structural role of lay participation in judicial decision-making, namely through the use and nonuse of grand, civil, and criminal juries. His scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including the Michigan Law Review, Boston College Law Review, Pepperdine Law Review, and DePaul Law Review
Prior to joining Southwestern, Professor Jolly gained extensive practice experience litigating complex commercial disputes, consumer and securities class actions, and government enforcement actions at leading law firms in Los Angeles, California.
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