American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant
Vol. 127 No. 1
Civil Procedure
Amgen Inc. v. Connecticut Retirement Plans & Trust Funds
Vol. 127 No. 1
Smentek v. Dart
Seventh Circuit Holds that Denial of Class Certification Cannot Bind Unnamed Class Members.
Vol. 126 No. 8
GSS Group Ltd. v. National Port Authority
D.C. Circuit Dismisses Suit Against National Port Authority of Liberia for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction.
Vol. 126 No. 6
The Effect of Settlement in Kaplow’s Multistage Adjudication
Responding to Louis Kaplow, Multistage Adjudication, 126 Harv. L. Rev. 1179 (2013)
Response to Multistage Adjudication
Vol. 126 No. 5
Grocery Manufacturers Ass’n v. EPA
D.C. Circuit Raises Prudential Standing Sua Sponte to Dismiss Regulatory Challenge on Jurisdictional Grounds.
Vol. 126 No. 5
Multistage Adjudication
Multistage legal procedures — such as a trial preceded by summary judgment — are ubiquitous. Yet scholars have ignored the question of how they should be structured.
Vol. 126 No. 5
M.D. ex rel. Stukenberg v. Perry
Fifth Circuit Holds that District Court Failed to Conduct Rigorous Class Certification Analysis in Light of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes.
Vol. 126 No. 4
Morvant v. P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, Inc.
District Court Enforces Class Action Waiver in Employment Arbitration Agreement.
Vol. 126 No. 4
Aggregate Litigation Goes Public: Representative Suits by State Attorneys General
Vol. 126 No. 2
State attorneys general represent their citizens in aggregate litigation that bears a striking resemblance to the much-maligned damages class action. Yet while private class actions are subject to a raft of procedural rules designed to protect absent class members, equivalent suits in the public sphere are largely free from constraint. The procedural disconnect between the two categories of aggregate litigation reflects a widespread assumption that attorneys general will adequately represent the interests of their respective state’s citizens, obviating any need for case-specific mechanisms for assuring the loyalty of lawyer to client.
This Article challenges the presumption of adequate public representation. By conflating consent of the governed with consent of the client, the conventional wisdom ignores the important differences between political and adjudicative representation. Class action scholars have produced mountains of commentary detailing the agency costs of aggregate litigation, including substantial conflicts between the interests of class counsel and the members of the plaintiff class. I show that the same risks are present in state suits.