The UCLA School of Law and the RAND Corporation are organizing a conference today to analyze increased secrecy in the nation’s civil justice system.
The event is the first product of a recent joint strategic alliance between the law school and RAND.
Michael Schill, dean of the law school, said the alliance combines RAND’s strengths in empirical research and the law school’s preeminence in legal research.
“Every year we’re going to do a conference and we’re going to conduct research together,” Schill said.
Today’s event will feature panels led by 25 speakers with backgrounds in law, academics and journalism, including California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George and attorney Ken Feinberg, who oversaw payments made to victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Joe Doherty, a statistician for the law school who helped organize the event, said that while access to public interest items such as campaign finance disclosure and online access to government records has become readily accessible over the years, the records of the civil justice system have become less transparent.
Doherty added that most disputes in the civil justice system are settled confidentially with private judges, or directed by mandatory arbitration.
“We used to know (in the public record) the facts of cases, such as car accidents, and how they were settled, and now the records of these disputes are increasingly private,” he said.
The conference aims to find out whether disclosure from the civil justice system would improve its efficiency, Doherty said.
Robert Reville, the director of the RAND Institute for Civil Justice, said the increased secrecy is useful to the average citizen because it protects privacy and lowers cost by avoiding trial, but at the same time, it raises questions about the public stake in private disputes.
“There are no data on what is happening in litigation, and therefore, no way to judge reform proposals and no way to evaluate them after they are adopted,” Reville said.
He added that the conference presenters will debate whether reforms would increase public confidence in the civil justice system.
The panels address legal issues involving transparency and compensation, privacy, system performance, and public policy. Each panel will allow 10 minutes for speakers to present their research, and continue with a 45-minute moderated discussion, Doherty said.
Reville said the audience may primarily consist of lawyers, but he said he hopes the conference benefits everybody affected by the civil justice system.
The findings and research from the conference will be published in a book, which will be unveiled in Washington, D.C.
“This is our kickoff event, and (the partnership) is something I’ve been dreaming about for three years,” Schill said.