March 2007 Vol. 105 No. 5 THE REVIEW
ARTICLES

Illuminating Secrecy: A New Economic Analysis of Confidential Settlements

Scott A. Moss

Even the most hotly contested lawsuits typically end in a confidential settlement forbidding the parties from disclosing their allegations, evidence, or settlement amount. Confidentiality draws fierce criticism for harming third parties by concealing serious misdeeds like discrimination, pollution, defective manufacturing, and sexual abuse. Others defend confidentiality as a mutually beneficial pay-for-silence bargain that facilitates settlement, serves judicial economy, and prevents frivolous copycat lawsuits. This debate is based in economic logic, yet most analyses have been surprisingly shallow as to how confidentiality affects incentives to settle. Depicting a more nuanced, complex reality of litigation and settlement, this Article reaches several conclusions that are quite different from the economic conventional wisdom—and absent from the existing literature. 

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Notification of Data Security Breaches

Paul M. Schwartz & Edward J. Janger
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Transnational Networks and International Criminal Justice

Jenia Iontcheva Turner
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& Other Current Events

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Citing Orin Kerr from MLR Volume 102, the Court addresses the controversy over GPS trackers and the Fourth Amendment

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Inside Agency Preemption

A subtle shift has taken place in the mechanics of preemption, the doctrine that determines when federal...

Criminal Sanctions in the Defense of the Innocent

  Under the formal rules of criminal procedure, fact finders are required to apply a uniform standard...

On Strict Liability Crimes: Preserving a Moral Framework for Criminal Intent in an Intent-Free Moral World

The law has long recognized a presumption against criminal strict liability. This Note situates that...
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