21 April to 12 May 2025
Introduction to US Civil Procedure
Executive Education
More answers to new challenges
Presentation
Coordination
Jeff Redding is a Visiting Professor at NOVA School of Law. An experienced and passionate teacher of civil procedure and constitutional law, Jeff has taught law for many years in both the United States and Australia where he is also a Senior Fellow at Melbourne Law School. Jeff earned his Juris Doctor (JD) from the University of Chicago Law School. Jeff is the author of A Secular Need: Islamic Law and State Governance in Contemporary India (University of Washington Press, Global South Asia series, 2020) focusing on the procedures governing non-state, private dispute resolution amongst religious minorities in India. He is also the Equality Law Coordinator of the NOVA Centre for the Study of Gender, Family and the Law.
Aim of the course
This course will introduce participants to the fundamentals of US civil litigation including the primary stages and requirements of a typical piece of civil litigation occurring in a US federal court. While civil litigation and civil procedure can differ somewhat from state to state in the United States, this course will focus on the requirements of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; these Rules serve as the primary rules for civil litigation brought in a US federal court and also serve as a template for many sub-federal state systems of civil litigation. Importantly this course also discusses US constitutional requirements about where a piece of civil litigation occurring between parties of different states or countries may be brought within the United States as well as complex forms of civil litigation including class actions.
Target audience
Lawyers with experience in litigation who want to better understand the US judicial context either because they have US clients and they want to understand US frames of reference and ways of thinking about a potential piece of civil litigation, or because they have cases in the United States and need to know a minimum to guide a team of lawyers there. Anyone interested in comparative law and legal systems will also learn quite a bit about the US civil litigation system in this course.
Teaching Method
Online. The sessions will be recorded.
Language
English
Duration
12 hours.
Date
21 April to 12 May 2025
Schedule
6 pm to 9 pm
Fee
- 550€
- Early Bird (until 21 March): 468 €
- Alumni NOVA School of Law: 495 €
- 20% off for organisations enrolling 3-4 participants; 30% off for organisations enrolling 5 or more participants.
* The discounts may not be combined
Programme
21 April 2025
Session 1 | Initiating Litigation and Strategies
The rules for what a civil complaint initiating litigation must include have changed over time and are also in flux. This session will introduce students to the essential elements of a contemporary civil complaint as well as the elements of any sufficient response to a complaint. This session will also discuss the important ethical limitations on pursuing speculative claims, but also the US system of civil discovery offering incentives for overclaiming; these limitations and incentives and potential strategies concerning each are discussed in this session.
Pleading
- Functions of the Complaint
- Allocating Elements
- Ethical Limitations
- Responding to the Complaint
- Amended Pleadings
Remedies
- Substitutionary and Specific Remedies; Declaratory Relief
- Provisional Remedies and Due Process
Discovery
- Modern Discovery, Possibilities of Discovery
- Limitations on Discovery
28 April 2025
Session 2 | Anticipating and Minimizing Trials
The US civil litigation system is increasingly organized around avoiding the time and expense of trials. This session will explore the different litigation technologies that US federal courts in particular have developed to minimize the possibility of trials for claims lacking evidentiary support. Civil trials do continue to happen, however, and the US federal system (along with many state systems) protects a relatively robust right to jury trial. Fundamental aspects of the constitutional and legal rules regulating jury trials in the US federal system are thus discussed in this session too.
Resolution without Trial
- Default and Dismissal
- Summary Judgment
Trial
- Right to Jury Trial
- Choosing Juries
- Judges v. Juries; Judgment as a Matter of Law (JML)
5 May 2025
Session 3 | More Complicated Features of US Civil Litigation
This session focuses on some of the more complicated yet crucial to know aspects of civil litigation in US courts. It begins with a discussion of two kinds of preclusion limiting future actions in a piece of completed civil litigation and then moves on to discuss the rules for complex civil litigation including class action forms of litigation.
Claim and Issue Preclusion
Joinder and Class Actions
- Joinder of Claims and Parties
- Class Actions
12 May 2025
Session IV | Personal and Subject Matter Jurisdiction
The United States has a complicated and pluralistic organization of its civil litigation system, with each of the 50 states operating its own court system along with the US federal court system. This session will convey the fundamental constitutional and legal questions that state courts must ask when determining whether they have jurisdiction over a piece of civil litigation—as opposed to another state’s court system—and that US federal courts must ask when determining whether there is federal jurisdiction in a civil matter as opposed to state court jurisdiction.
Power of States to Exercise Personal Jurisdiction over Civil Defendant
- Specific Jurisdiction
- General Jurisdiction
- Consent as a Substitute for Power
- Constitutional Requirement of Notice
- Long-Arm Statutes
Federal Court Subject Matter Jurisdiction
- Federal Question Jurisdiction
- Diversity Jurisdiction
- Supplemental Jurisdiction
- Removal