PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
In Praise of Litigation (Oxford 2017)
Winner, Pound Civil Justice Scholarship Award
Honorable Mention, ABA Silver Gavel Award
Reviews:
"In the face of the widespread popular perception that lawsuits are inimical to American society, law professor Lahav is persuasive in demonstrating that litigation 'is a social good and promotes democracy,' even if it is a far from perfect tool. Her contention is bolstered by her well-reasoned analyses that perfectly balance detail with brevity, making this work fully accessible to non-lawyers and readers unversed in the debates about access to justice and tort reform." -Publishers Weekly
"In a culture where it has become fashionable to bash lawyers and the lawsuits they file, Alexandra Lahav reminds us, in forceful, engaging, and compelling prose, that litigation plays an essential role in our democracy. Her clear-eyed analysis engages the criticisms of litigation honestly and persuasively, and makes a powerful case for its role in a justice-seeking society."-David Cole, Professor, Georgetown Law, National Legal Director, ACLU, and author of Engines of Liberty
"An important contribution to the ongoing debate over the role of litigation in promoting a just society. Alexandra Lahav convincingly demonstrates how and why American style litigation-'a form of political activity'-remains critical to our Nation's future." -Kenneth R. Feinberg, Former Special Master of the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund
"The central message of In Praise of Litigation is a powerful one: the benefits of lawsuits (and the harms from improperly restricting them) go far beyond the parties and their lawyers. The book is a tour de force in which Alexandra Lahav draws on a dazzling array of examples, from cases involving slaves seeking freedom in the 1850s to cases involving e. coli in fast-food hamburgers, and from little-noticed suits involving individuals to iconic Supreme Court decisions like Brown v. Board of Education, that stretch across both doctrinal boundaries and American history. Every law student and every lawyer should read In Praise of Litigation not just to understand more fully how litigation actually works today, but also to arm themselves better to defend equal access to the courts as a critical aspect of our democracy." -Pamela S. Karlan, Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, Stanford Law School
More Reviews:
Wolfgang Hau, Rezensionin, Zeitschrift fur Zivilprozess (September 2018)
Corporate Crime Reporter (March 2017)
Publisher’s Weekly (December 2016)
Civil Procedure: Doctrine, Practice, Context (with Minow, Subrin, Brodin & Maine)
ARTICLES
Civil Litigation
Works in Progress
The Curious Incident of the Falling Win Rate: Individual vs System-level Justification and the Rule of Law, U.C. Davis L. Rev. (forthcoming 2019) (with Peter Siegelman)
Against Judicial Accountability: Evidence from the Six Month List (with Peter Siegelman and Miguel DeFigueiredo)
Published Works
Procedural Design, 71 Vanderbilt L. Rev. 821 (2018)
A Proposal to End Discovery Abuse, 71 Vand. L. Rev. 2037 (2018)
The Roles of Litigation in American Democracy, 65 Emory L. Rev. 1657 (2016)
Participation and Procedure, 64 DePaul L. Rev. 513 (2015)
The Market for Preclusion in Merger Litigation, 66 Vanderbilt L. Rev. 1053 (2013)(with Sean J. Griffith)
Symmetry and Class Action Litigation, 60 UCLA L. Rev. 1494 (2013)
The Political Justification for Group Litigation, 81 Fordham L. Rev. 3193 (2013)
The Case for “Trial by Formula,” 90 Tex. L. Rev. 571 (2012)
Due Process and the Future of Class Actions, 44 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 545 (2012)
Two Views of the Class Action, 79 Fordham L. Rev. 1939 (2011)
Are Class Actions Unconstitutional? 106 Mich. L. Rev. 993 (2011) (book review of Martin H. Redish, Wholesale Justice: Constitutional Democracy and the Problem of the Class Action Lawsuit (2009))
The Curse of Bigness and the Optimal Size of Class Actions, 63 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 117 (2010)
Bellwether Trials, 76 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 576 (2008)
Recovering the Social Value of Jurisdictional Redundancy, 82 Tulane L. Rev. 2369 (2008)
The Law and Large Numbers: Preserving Adjudication in Complex Litigation, 59 Florida L. Rev. 383 (2007)
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: Dead Souls, Phantom Clients and the Modern Class Action in 40 Studies In Law, Politics And Society 340 (Austin Sarat ed., 2007)
Fundamental Principles for Class Action Governance, 37 Indiana L. Rev. 65 (2003)
Torts
Mass Tort Class Actions: Past, Present, and Future, 92 NYU L. Rev. 1998 (2017)
The Case for “Trial by Formula,” 90 Tex. L. Rev. 571 (2012)
Bellwether Trials, 76 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 576 (2008)
The Law and Large Numbers: Preserving Adjudication in Complex Litigation, 59 Florida L. Rev. 383 (2007)
Legal History
The Law Wars in Massachusetts, 1830-1860: How a Band of Upstart Radical Lawyers Defeated the Forces of Law and Order and Struck a Blow for Freedom and Equality Under Law, 58 Am. J. L. Hist. 1 (2018) (with R. Kent Newmyer)
Rites without Rights: A Tale of Two Military Commissions, 24 Yale Journal of Law & Humanities 439 (2012)
Portraits of Resistance: How Lawyers Respond to Unjust Proceedings, 57 UCLA L. Rev. 725 (2010)
Legal Ethics
Two Views of the Class Action, 79 Fordham L. Rev. 1939 (2011)
Portraits of Resistance: How Lawyers Respond to Unjust Proceedings, 57 UCLA L. Rev. 725 (2010)