Expert Analysis

• Ivory Coast War Crime Acquittals Fuel Skepticism Of ICC

  

  The acquittals last month of the former president of the Ivory Coast and a political ally add to the recent string of failures by the International Criminal Court to obtain convictions for accused war criminals. The decision is drawing attention for a number of reasons, say Viren Mascarenhas and Morgan Bridgman of King & Spalding LLP.

• Why Review Title VII Exhaustion Requirements At High Court?

  

  In Fort Bend County v. Davis, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether exhaustion of administrative remedies under Title VII is required before a court can exercise jurisdiction over a case. But many are wondering what practical difference, if any, the eventual outcome will make, says Carolyn Wheeler of Katz Marshall & Banks LLP.

• Barr Could Steer First Step Act Off Course

  

  The recently enacted First Step Act makes significant strides toward reforming the federal criminal justice system. However, if attorney general nominee William Barr is confirmed, his oversight could render the law almost ineffectual, says Lara Yeretsian, a Los Angeles-based criminal defense attorney.

• Civil Legal Aid's Essential Role In Wildfire Response

  

  Wildfires and other natural disasters present a wide range of often unanticipated civil legal challenges. Disaster survivors should be able to turn to "second responders" from the legal community to preserve their rights, say John Levi of the Legal Services Corp. and Robert Malionek of Latham & Watkins LLP.

• How To Stop Civil Jury Trials From Becoming Extinct

  

  If we wait to take action until we identify all the reasons civil jury trials are in decline, trials might disappear altogether. Let's address the causes we've already identified using these important jury innovations, says Stephen Susman, executive director of the Civil Jury Project at NYU School of Law.

• Stripping The False Premises From Civil Justice Problems

  

  When I began researching access to justice in 2004, there were two settled beliefs about civil justice problems so obvious that few bothered to investigate them. Both turned out to be false, says Rebecca Sandefur, associate professor of sociology and law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

• Cy Pres Awards Are The Best Answer

  

  The argument that cy pres awards violate the rights of absent class members is wrong on many levels and ignores the fact that prohibiting such distributions creates far more problems than it solves, says John Campbell, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

• Maybe Virtual Reality Juries Can Facilitate Access To Justice

  

  Jury service is a terrible user experience and an unpredictable disruption. What if the courts leveraged virtual reality technology to allow jurors to serve remotely? asks Stephen Kane, founder of online dispute resolution platform FairClaims and a fellow of Stanford CodeX Center for Legal Informatics.

• A Key Legal Reform To Fight The Child Sex Abuse Epidemic

  

  With child sex predators victimizing, on average, over 100 children in their lifetimes, the implicit danger of retaining state statutes of limitation for prosecution of these crimes could not be more obvious, says Michael Dolce of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC.

• Blockchain Can Empower Stateless Refugees

  

  Innovative blockchain-based projects providing stateless refugees with forms of identification, digital assets and educational opportunities could change the rules for this vulnerable population, say Amy Schmitz of the University of Missouri School of Law and Jeff Aresty of Internetbar.org.

• How State Courts Are Fighting Our National Opioid Epidemic

  

  Loretta Rush, chief justice of Indiana and co-chair of the National Judicial Opioid Task Force, discusses how state courts can facilitate a successful policy response to the opioid epidemic.

• How The 3rd Generation Of Bail Reform Imploded

  

  Thirty-four years after the passage of the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1984, we have finally seen the implosion of this misguided attempt at justice, says Jeffrey Clayton, executive director of the American Bail Coalition.

• Class Cy Pres Settlements Are A Troubling Practice

  

  Class actions are often touted as a powerful mechanism for access to justice, but is this true when there is zero chance of recovery for class members? asks Mary Massaron, a partner at Plunkett Cooney PC and former president of Lawyers for Civil Justice.

• The Pro Bono Law That United Congress

  

  Those who perpetrate crimes are guaranteed the right to counsel, but victims of domestic violence and sexual assault are not. With the unanimously passed Pro Bono Work to Empower and Represent Act, I envision an army of lawyers helping break the cycle of abuse, says Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska.

• Aggressive Stops And Frisks Won't Make Chicago Safer

  

  Speaking recently to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, President Donald Trump called for stop-and-frisk practices in Chicago to reduce violent crime. But beyond the negative consequences of this approach, data supporting its effectiveness is sparse, say Dr. Tara Lai Quinlan and Northeastern University School of Law professor Deborah Ramirez.