Complex Litigation

It is increasingly uncommon to practice law without encountering complex cases, whether due to the presence of complicated legal claims (patent, antitrust, securities, products liability, social impact litigation, etc.) or the involvement of multiple parties (through class actions or joinder or third party practice). This course will examine a variety of procedural and substantive issues presented in the pretrial, trial, and remedial phases of, among other complex litigations, class actions and multidistrict litigation. To cope with the protracted and difficult nature of complex matters, the legal system has made adjustments in areas such as case management, discovery, use of experts, and reliance on arbitration in place of litigation. These adjustments, however, not only have strategic ramifications for practitioners and the courts, but they implicate theoretical concerns about our adversarial adjudication system, judicial discretion, the relevance of a jury trial, and the value we accord to the efficiency of the legal process.