In this paper we explore the impact of relational history on firms’ willingness to “work things out” in subsequent agreements, by examining the way that contract disputes between partners in vertical exchange relationships are actually resolved. Counter to the received wisdom we find no evidence of an automatic preference for private dispute resolution (negotiation, mediation or arbitration) am...

Many Australian courts now prefer pre-hearing meetings of experts (conclaves) being convened to prepare joint reports to identify areas of agreement and disagreement, followed by concurrent expert evidence at trial. This contrasts to the traditional approach where experts did not meet before trial and did not give evidence together. Most judges, lawyers and expert witnesses favour this as a pos...

This paper aims to examine increases in professional liability for architectural and engineering (A/E) professionals following quantitative changes in litigation risks after the Chichi Earthquake. The methodology uses t-tests and ANOVA to analyse the impact of the earthquake with regard to (1) the number of A/E litigations, (2) the type of plaintiff, (3) court decisions, and (4) the scope of A/...

The second Rehnquist Court has remained unchanged in composition for 8 yr, resulting in a large temporally stable database. This paper reports on a mathematically objective analysis of this ensemble of rulings aimed at extracting key patterns and latent information. Although the rulings of a nine-justice Court require representation in nine dimensions, smaller spaces describe the Court's action...

Despite the former popularity of hypnosis as a way of "improving" eyewitness memory, many courts almost always regard the use of this testimony to be inadmissible, whereas others allow it only when strict procedural guidelines have been followed. Although the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a defendant's constitutional right to admit his own hypnotically elicited testimony, others have recognized...

Instead of turning immediately to federal legislation, the question of “federalism” then becomes: When is federal action appropriate, and when should the problem be addressed by the states? Over the past fifteen years, courts and legal scholars have attempted to answer this question. This Article presents a framework that provides a new technique to answer this question. This framework analyzes...

No. In common usage they are considered legal concepts, because they represent specific judgments made by the courts. However, they also can be regarded as distinct medicolegal concepts. Although clinical data contribute to the determination of both competence and insanity, the determination also requires a knowledge of relevant statutes as well as a comprehensive analysis of both subjective an...