E-raamat: Confidentiality, Transparency, and the U.S. Civil Justice System

"This superb book on the American judicial system takes a persuasive new approach to reform. Its arguments are carefully grounded in extensive rigorous empirical data. The book escapes the often shallow ideological argumentation about judicial outcomes to provide a more sophisticated and accurate depiction of the system. While typical analysis examines only the tip, this book evaluates the entire iceberg. I commend it to anyone who wants to truly know how the American litigation system works and how it might be improved." Frank Cross, Herbert D. Kelleher Centennial Professor of Business Law and Professor of Law, University of Texas at Austin School of Law

"As these collected essays make clear, the persistent `vanishingtrial' in the United States is a product of more than the absolute and relative decline in the use of completed trials to resolve civil litigation. The growing use of confidentiality agreements further dilutes public access to dispute resolutions. This important book contributes much to the on-going policy debates that engage with the competing costs and benefits to the civil justice system posed by the demands of transparency. Benehtting from an array of methodological approaches, these essays will likely influence policymakers as well as efforts to improve our civil justice system." Michael Heise. Professor of Law, Cornell Law School

"This important book explores perhaps the greatest contemporary challenge to the American civil justice system: lack of outward transparency. The essays within contain novel and important insights about how the established trend towards greater opacity affects our civil justice system, dangers that this trend represents, and constrictive reform proposals to address it. The collection deserves a prominent place on the bookshelves of students, researchers, policy makers, and engaged members of the general public." Eric Tallev. Rosalinde a nd Arthur Gilbert Professor of Law and Director of the Berkeley Center for Law, Business, and the Economy, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law

The lawsuit is the cornerstone of the civil justice system in America, and an open court the foundation of American jurisprudence. In a public setting, we resolve disputes, determine liability, and compensate injuries. In recent decades, however, more civil disputes have been resolved out of court and the outcomes have been kept secret. Fewer than 5 percent of the tens of millions of injury claims annually are actually resolved through a public trial with a jury, and the vast majority are settled out of court or through private forums, such as mediation or arbitration, with undisclosed terms. Some argue that the confidentiality of the system keeps it working efficiently and fairly; others argue that the public is being denied information about hazards that may cause harm and that a public system with no data lacks oversight.

This collection of essays by leading legal scholars is the first book to approach the issue in a multidisciplinary, nonpartisan, and empirical manner. The essays provide empirical analyses and case studies of the impact of greater disclosure on various aspects of the system, ranging from settlement values to fraud, and propose several novel prescriptions for reform. With special attention to the emergence of modern mass litigation, the authors identify a number of benefits to increasing access to information, including decreased fraud, improved public understanding and confidence in the system, and lower transactions costs. The authors make policy recommendations--such as expanding access to existing databases and using technology to create new databases--that increase transparency while protecting the need for privacy.