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Judicature

PUBLISHED BY:
Bolch Judicial Institute
Duke Law School

Civil Law

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Asking All the Right Questions: Benefits of Juror Questionnaires and Attorney-Conducted Voir Dire

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Vol. 109 No. 1 (2025) | Celebrating a Decade at Duke

The Seventh Amendment guarantees litigants a right to trial by jury, and, for more than 200 years, the voir dire process has been used in the United States to ensure […]

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Reviving Rules 16 and 26

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Vol. 109 No. 1 (2025) | Celebrating a Decade at Duke

Rule 16 (on pretrial conferences and scheduling) and Rule 26 (on disclosures and discovery) give judges important tools to improve case management. Here’s how they should use them. Click here […]

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The New Administrative State?

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Vol. 108 No. 3 (2025) | Problem-Solving Courts

How Recent Supreme Court Decisions May Shape Regulation, Deference, and the Role of the Courts When it comes to administrative agencies, the U.S. Supreme Court has been busy. Last term, […]

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Reflections from a Special Master: The Cy Pres Process in a High-dollar, Class-action Case

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Vol. 108 No. 2 (2024) | Judges Under Siege?

In 2018, I was appointed as special master under Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in a nationwide class action that had resulted in a judgment of […]

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Invaluable Knowledge: How Trial Judge Experience Shapes Intermediate Appellate Review

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Vol. 107 No. 3 (2024) | Justitia

Imagine that you (a former civil trial judge) and your colleague (a former tax court judge) are on an appellate panel assigned to adjudicate two appeals. One is an appeal […]

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Should the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Be Amended to Address Cross-Border Discovery?

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Vol. 107 No. 2 (2023) | Generative AI in the Courts

In today’s world of borderless commerce, digital documents, and cloud storage, information relevant to U.S. litigation frequently is located outside of the United States. When discovery in a U.S. case […]

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Collected Wisdom on Selecting Leaders and Managing MDLs

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Vol. 106 No. 1 (2022) | Necessarily Engaged

In 2020, nearly one out of every two new suits filed in federal civil court was part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL). Initially designed to organize antitrust cases against electrical equipment manufacturers, […]

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Claims-Made Class-Action Settlements

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Vol. 99 No. 3 (2015) | Fixing Discovery

Many of us have received notice, by mail or by newspaper, of a class-action settlement on behalf of consumers who may unwittingly be claimants in a suit asserting that a […]

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The Nuts and Bolts of the 2015 Discovery Amendments

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Vol. 99 No. 3 (2015) | Fixing Discovery

How did these new amendments to the civil rules come about? Why now? How will they succeed when past efforts have failed? Duke Lew Dean David F. Levi leads a […]

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From Rule Text to Reality: Achieving Proportionality in Practice

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Vol. 99 No. 3 (2015) | Fixing Discovery

In November 2014, a year before the 2015 discovery amendments could become effective, the Duke Center for Judicial Studies started a project to provide guidance for judges and lawyers on […]

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