Civil Procedure
Prof. Rhonda Wasserman
Course Description
Civil Procedure -- the "rules" part of the required, first-year Legal Process and Civil Procedure sequence -- covers various topics that arise in the pre- and post-trial stages of civil litigation. We will focus on federal procedural statutes and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which have served as models for procedural rules in many other jurisdictions. The course will cover:
Pleading: the documents (pleadings and related motions) by which litigation is initiated, defined, and sometimes disposed of;
Joinder of claims and parties and supplemental jurisdiction: how litigation may be structured when it involves multiple claims and parties and the extent of federal courts’ power to hear particular claims in the litigation as structured;
Pre-trial discovery: the means by which parties obtain information prior to trial;
Summary judgment: disposition of issues or claims through a final judgment on the merits without trial; and
Preclusive Effects of Judgments: limitations on the parties’ ability to re-litigate matters that have been decided in a prior action.