 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(April 2021) |
William L. F. Felstiner (born December 14, 1929), usually known as Bill Felstiner, is a socio-legal scholar.
| This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(April 2021) |
William L. F. Felstiner (born December 14, 1929), usually known as Bill Felstiner, is a socio-legal scholar.
Bill Felstiner was born in New York, and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and Yale College. He received his LL.B. from Yale Law School in 1958. In 1965, he was hired as regional legal advisor of the USAID Mission to Greece & Turkey and in due course appointed assistant director of the US AID Mission to India (until 1968).
In 1969, Bill Felstiner started a university teaching career as associate dean and lecturer at Yale Law School. While at Yale he helped direct the Yale Program in Law and Modernization. In 1973 he joined UCLA as assistant professor. In 1976 he decided to devote full-time to research, working, first, at the USC's Social Science Research Institute, then at the Rand Corporation's Civil Justice Institute and, finally, at the American Bar Foundation, of which he was executive director. While at USC he served as co-PI of the US Justice Department-funded Civil Litigation Research Project. Then he moved back to teaching and to the university. After teaching in political science at Northwestern University, he became professor of sociology in the Law and Society Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1992–1999). In the years 2000-2003 he was director of the International Institute for the Sociology of Law in Oñati (Gipuzkoa, Spain). [1] From 1995 to 2005 he also held the position of Distinguished Research Professor of Law at Cardiff University (Wales, UK).
In his early work, Bill Felstiner focussed on alternative ways to solve conflicts (avoidance, mediation, litigation etc.), touring Western Europe for possible models both in criminal and civil procedure. He continued his interest in litigation and alternatives to litigation as co-PI of the Civil Litigation Research Project (CLRP)a joint venture of USC and the University of Wisconsin funded by the US Department of Justice, conducted a major study of litigation in federal courts and the operation of alternative fora for civil disputes. Felstiner participated in all aspects of CLRP's work and (together with Rick Abel and Austin Sarat), developed the idea of a disputes pyramid and the formula "naming, blaming, claiming", which refers to different stages of conflict resolution and levels of the pyramid. [2] At Rand's Civil Justice Institute, he initiated a long-term investigation into asbestos litigation. After that he concentrated his organizational and research energies on the legal profession, publishing a book on divorce lawyering and editing one on the legal culture of global business transactions. From 1994 to 2000, he also chaired the influential Working Group on Legal Professions [3] of the Research Committee on Sociology of Law, which produced a number of important collections.
Almost forty years after his work with USAID, Bill Felstiner returned to this earlier vocation. During the Katrina disaster in 2005, he volunteered and worked as the director of one on the largest shelters for the homeless of New Orleans. In 2007 he founded, together with colleagues from Santa Barbara, the Chad Relief Foundation (CRF) and became its first director. The organization is a non-profit NGO, whose objective is to provide assistance to refugees from the Central African Republic in South Chad and to the local population surrounding the refugee camps.
Felstiner and his wife, Gray, have two sons, Ben and Paul.
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The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies (FedSoc) is an American conservative and libertarian legal organization that advocates for a textualist and originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has chapters at more than 200 law schools and features student, lawyer, and faculty divisions; the lawyers division comprises more than 70,000 practicing attorneys in ninety cities. Through speaking events, lectures, and other activities, it provides a forum for legal experts of opposing views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, and the legal academy. It is one of the most influential legal organizations in the United States.
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Geoffrey Cornell Hazard Jr. was Trustee Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he taught from 1994 to 2005, and the Thomas E. Miller Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law. He was also Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School.
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A cause lawyer, also known as a public interest lawyer or social lawyer, is a lawyer dedicated to the usage of law for the promotion of social change to address a cause. Cause lawyering is commonly described as a practice of "lawyering for the good" or using law to empower members of the weaker layers of society. It may or may not be performed pro bono. Cause lawyering is frequently practiced by individual lawyers or lawyers employed by associations that aim to supply a public service to complement state-provided legal aid.
Stephen Daily Susman was an American commercial plaintiffs attorney and founding and name partner of Susman Godfrey LLP. He won more than $2 billion in damages and settlements in just three cases, including a $1.1 billion settlement on behalf of Texas Instruments in Samsung Electronics v. Texas Instruments, and a $536 million jury verdict in El Paso Natural Gas Co. v. GHR Energy Corp.
Volkmar Gessner was a German university professor and a socio-legal scholar.
Legal technology, also known as Legal Tech, refers to the use of technology and software to provide legal services and support the legal industry. Legal Tech companies are often startups founded with the purpose of disrupting the traditionally conservative legal market.
The Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency (FACT) Act of 2015 is a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Blake Farenthold that would require asbestos trusts in the United States to file quarterly reports about the payouts they make and personal information on the victims who receive them in a publicly accessible database. The legislation would also allow defendant corporations in asbestos cases to demand information from the trusts for any reason.
Thomas Martin Partington, is a British retired legal scholar and barrister. He is Emeritus professor of Law at the University of Bristol.
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Michael J. Kaufman is the Dean and a Professor of Law at Santa Clara University School of Law. He previously served as Dean of Loyola University Chicago School of Law, where he also held several administrative positions at Loyola University Chicago, including Acting Provost and Chief Academic Officer and Vice Provost for Academic Strategy. His research and teaching focuses on education law, equity, policy, and pedagogy; securities regulation and litigation; and civil procedure and dispute resolution.
