Synopses & Reviews
Civil justice in the United States is neither civil nor just. Instead it embodies a maxim that the American legal system is a paragon of legal process which assures its citizens a fair and equal treatment under the law. Long have critics recognized the system's failings while offering abundant criticism but few solutions. This book provides a comparative-critical introduction to civil justice systems in the United States, Germany, and Korea. It shows the shortcomings of the American system and compares them with German and Korean successes in implementing the rule of law. The author argues that these shortcomings could easily be fixed if the American legal systems were open to seeing how other legal systems' civil justice processes handle cases more efficiently and fairly. Far from being a treatise for specialists, this book is an introductory text for civil justice in the three aforementioned legal systems. It is intended to be accessible to people with a general knowledge of a modern legal system.
Synopsis
This book provides a comparative-critical introduction to civil justice systems in the United States, Germany and Korea.
Synopsis
American civil justice fails to meet the nation s needs. America s eighteenth century founders expected of the nation s future civil justice system that everyone ought to obtain right and justice freely, without sale, completely and without denial, promptly and without delay. Few lawyers today would say that American civil justice fulfills the founders expectations. Some say that it is oppressive and unjust. Many have given up the goals that the founders set. America s reformers have run out of ideas. They have no proven models for fixing what they know is broken. This book provides a comparative critical introduction to civil justice systems in the United States, Germany, and Korea. It shows shortcomings of the American system and compares them with German and Korean successes. The book shows foreign systems as a source of ideas that are proven to work. The book informs general readers as well as specialists."
About the Author
James R. Maxeiner is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Baltimore. Before entering academia he spent more than two decades in the international practice of law, first with the United States Department of Justice and then as Vice President and Associated General Counsel of Dun and Bradstreet, Inc. He is a former Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and guest researcher of the Max Planck Institutes in Hamburg, Freiburg and Munich. He is a member of the American Law Institute.
Table of Contents
1. Civil justice: an introduction; 2. Legal method: thinking like a lawyer; 3. Lawyers and legal systems: access to justice; 4. The court: jurisdiction and applicable law; 5. Pleading: the matter in controversy; 6. Process: the right to be heard; 7. Judgments, appeals and outcomes; 8. Conclusion.