Society: Events: COMMON GOOD FORUM: Lawsuits & Liberty

COMMON GOOD FORUM: Lawsuits & Liberty

Location: National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, PA
June 27, 2005

Prominent judges, present and former senior government officials and leading scholars gathered at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, PA, on June 27-28, 2005, for a groundbreaking forum entitled, "Lawsuits and Liberty: A Forum Addressing the Role of Civil Justice in a Free Society."

Common Good hosted the forum to explore how litigation undermines the most important goal of civil justice--providing the foundation for reasonable choices in a free society.

Participants included Lord Hoffmann, Member of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords (U.K.)., John M. Walker, Jr., Chief Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; Edith H. Jones, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit; Dolores K. Sloviter, Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; Associate U.S. Attorney General Robert D. McCallum, Jr., and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson.

Lord Hoffman gave the keynote address, The Social Cost of Tort Liability.

Major papers were presented by:

• Common Good Chair Philip K. Howard (The Forgotten Goal of Civil Justice: A Foundation for Common Sense in Daily Life);
• Stephen B. Presser, Professor, Northwestern University School of Law and Kellogg School of Management (How Did We Get Here? What Litigation Was, What It is Now, What it Might Be);
• George L. Priest, Professor, Yale Law School (The Modern Transformation of Civil Law); and
• E. Donald Elliott, Professor, Yale Law School, Partner, Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP (The Administrative Advantage in Civil Procedure: Tort Reform through Consistent and Intelligent Policies Applied by Administrative Tribunals).

Additional presentations and speeches now available include:

• "How Adversarial Legalism Affects Behavior," a talk by Robert A. Kagan, Professor of Political Science and Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Kagan is the author of Adversarial Legalism: The American Way of Law.
• "The Public's Perception: Presentation of Harris Poll Results and Other Poll Results," a presentation by Judyth W. Pendell, Senior Fellow, AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Affairs.

View the agenda for a full list of the distinguished scholars who participated in the event.

Lawsuits & Liberty featured a wide-ranging discussion unified by the recognition--too often neglected--that lawsuits impact behavior and can have broad social consequences.

At the forum, Harris Interactive released new polling data revealing that only 16 percent of Americans trust the legal system to defend them against baseless claims.

To restore trust in civil justice, Howard wrote in his paper, "[J]udges must delineate the boundaries of claims that implicate social policy. Judges must act as gatekeepers ... giving legal substance to general standards."

The forum was held in cooperation with the National Constitution Center and the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies.

Pictures from the form can be found under Related Materials.

As additional materials from the forum become available, they will be posted to this webpage.

Bios

Agenda

Related material