ULAW 1000 - Law and Systems

January 22 - Law and Systems

Primary Law Process

• The law can create order 

• Social life

• Economic life

• Procedures

• To govern dispute resolution 

• Govern law-making/changing  

• Can also discharge the first function on this list 

  • Eg: Emancipation Proclamation 

• Remedial 

  • Where legal rights are violated 

• Public Safety 

  • Criminal laws 

  • Criminal law tries to balance general public safety in the concept of protecting the community not jailing people 

  • Emergencies and disasters

• Expressive Law

  • Emancipation Proclamation

    • Ex: TikTok Ban; Donald Trump's executive order 

  • Sharman Act 

  • Laws have an expressive function; say something about who we are as people 

  • Meant to show an expressive function 

• Historical Function 

  • Mark important moments in our history 

  • Turning points 

  • Sherman Act 

    • A point where the American economy was under the weight of large monopolies of oil, shipping, steel production 

• Moral Functions 

Law often mediates Questions of Value 

• When the law is unclear, judges need some room and a reminder 

  • Create something that is generally consistent to balance important values 

• Truth-seeking vs. Efficiency 

• Uniformity vs. Pluralism 

Structural Features 

• Adversarial, not inquisitorial 

  • The parties 

    • Have to file motions to compel anything through the court 

  • The plaintiff and defendant that drive the process 

  • Plaintiff decides what they want to sue over 

    • Party driving how the dispute is structured 

  • Judges need to be neutral with whatever case comes to the courtroom 

  • Constitutional right to a jury in adversarial, not inquisitorial 

  • Pick an adversarial system that serves our truth-seeking value 

  • Work on what cases are and how their values affect them 

  • Might choose an adversarial system because it is slow 

    • But if it helps us get to the truth of the matter, then we like it 

    • Facilitate notice of the law 

• Common law, not civil law 

  • Civil law: judges interpret and establish statutes 

    • Can’t analogize other cases 

  • Common law: the main thing that judges do in deciding cases where the law is unclear is rely on other judicial decisions

    • Treat like cases alike 

    • Need to maintain fairness across cases 

    • Good for efficiency and pluralism 

    • However, different states and different views can leave decisions confused 

  • There are different types of ideas for marketplace ideas 

• Federal, not unitary