Peter L. Murray

The recent mandate to all organs of Maine state government to make major budget cuts in a time of international economic distress has focused attention on the fiscal and operational condition of Maine’s Judicial Branch. A symposium on March 30, 2009 at the University of Southern Maine presented various perspectives on the role of Maine’s judiciary as the twenty-first century unfolds, and the need for adequate resources to maintain the Judicial Branch as a vital and functioning branch of our tripartite system of government. It is clear that much of the challenge faced by our Judicial Branch is that of educating Maine’s politicians, citizens, and constituencies on the vital role of Maine’s courts and the importance of prioritizing funds to enable the Judicial Branch to do its work. On the other hand, sometimes a focus on lack of resources can divert attention from serious structural issues in Maine’s judicial system. We are blessed with a judiciary of high integrity, competence, and industry. Many aspects of Maine’s judicial function are modern and well suited to the tasks at hand. But there are also respects in which Maine’s judicial establishment has retained forms and institutions that better reflect values, technology, and political realities of the nineteenth century than those of the twenty-first. There is an urgent need for reform of some of these outdated elements of our justice system—not only to make the system more efficient, but also to provide Maine’s citizens with a better quality of justice. The purpose of this Article is to remind us of three reforms to Maine’s judicial establishment that are indeed overdue and to encourage us to push hard to bring all aspects of Maine’s court operations into the twenty-first century. First of all, the basic tiered structure of our courts of first instance, district, superior and probate, is a relic of the nineteenth century. The movement to unify these courts that began in the 1990s should be brought to its logical conclusion with the creation of a single Maine Trial Court. Second, the Maine county probate courts with part-time elected judges comprise an embarrassing anomaly in a system otherwise free of judicial elections and part-time judges. The probate judges should be phased out and the new Maine Trial Court should exercise probate jurisdiction. Third, Maine’s system of appellate justice, with only one true appellate court, has long been under stress because of overstretched resources. It is time to reorganize existing judicial resources to include an intermediate appellate court that can provide quality appellate review in the general run of cases and thus permit the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, to focus on guiding the work of the Judicial Branch and on hearing and deciding cases of unusual significance. The foregoing structural reforms should bring the structure of the Maine judicial system into the first rank of modern American judicial systems. The need for reform, however, does not stop here. The operations and practices of our civil and criminal courts were originally developed at a time when Maine’s citizens traveled on foot and horseback, when writing was done with quill pen on paper, and when oral discussion could take place only in the immediate vicinity of all the participants. Those days are long past. Developments in travel, information handling, and communications have rendered many of the operational practices of Maine’s civil and criminal justice systems obsolete and inefficient. The structural reforms urged herein must be complemented by a rigorous overhaul of operations before we get a court system that will serve Maine’s citizens efficiently and well under twenty-first century conditions.

For the last thirty years in the United States and for the last ten years in England, Germany, Italy and other continental systems, various forms of mediation have been increasingly incorporated into the processes of civil justice. Interparty mediation by neutral third parties to facilitate settlements of civil disputes has become more and more commonplace in all public processes of dispute resolution. This mediation can take several forms, ranging from informal efforts by the trial judge to encouraging parties to settle the pending dispute to highly formalised settlement proceedings conducted by private professional mediators retained by the parties or appointed by the court. To date, court-annexed mediation has met with a generally enthusiastic reception by parties, courts, lawyers and academics. There is an abundant literature documenting the value of mediative techniques to facilitate case settlement, both anecdotally and statistically. The predominant tone of academic literature to date praises mediation for its flexibility, maintenance of party autonomy, ability to save costs of contested proceedings and the value of termination of disputes by agreement. Court decisions, on the other hand, are discounted as expensive, delayed and often not well adapted to the parties' real needs. The American civil justice system, with its high level of adversariality and expensive cost profile based on the jury trial model, has offered particularly fertile ground for the growth of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and incorporation of ADR into public justice processes. Incorporation of ADR modalities in civil justice processes has proceeded more slowly in Europe.

Sections on the United Kingdom with special reference to the role of notaries in England and Wales. This study provides an in-depth and objective comparative analysis of the national provisions of private law and private international law in the field of authentic instruments with special focus on their mutual recognition and enforcement within selected EU Member States. The results of this comparative analysis serve as a basis for evaluating if a legislative initiative of the European Union in this field is worthwhile or necessary. For that purpose, the study contains some proposals on the legal basis and the form as well as on the scope and the content of a possible regulatory intervention by the European Union.

The growing privatization of civil justice brings the risk that public justice as we know it is being eroded.

Comprehensive comparative law study of real estate conveyancing law, practices and costs in 5 European Union Member States, England, Estonia, France, Germany and Sweden, along with two of the United States, Maine and New York.

Law in the United States, Second Edition, is a concise presentation of the salient elements of the American legal system designed mainly for jurists of civil law backgrounds. It focuses on features of American law likely to be least familiar to jurists from other legal traditions, such as American common law, the federal structure of the U.S. legal system, and the American constitutional tradition. The use of comparative law technique permits foreign jurists to appreciate the American legal system in comparison with legal systems with which they are already familiar. Chapters in the second edition also cover such topics as American civil justice, criminal law, jury trial, choice of laws and international jurisdiction, the American legal profession, and the influence of American law in the global legal order.

Maine Evidence is the standard treatise on the Maine Rules of Evidence and the case law interpreting and applying the rules in civil and criminal cases. Included are the text of the rules, Advisory Committee Notes, and comprehensive commentary and analysis. The 6th Edition (published in 2006) is revised and updated to include rules changes up to the time of publication and case analysis and other developments up to December 31, 2006.

German Civil Justice is an English-language detailed description and comparative analysis of the legal framework and practical working of the modern German civil justice system. This comprehensive work presents German civil litigation, both procedural law doctrine and actual practice, in terms relevant and understandable to readers mainly familiar with the common-law systems of England and the United States. Authors Murray and Sturner include detailed treatment of the various institutions of civil justice such as courts, judges and lawyers, discussion of the theoretical principles upon which German litigation is conducted, and a step-by-step analysis of German civil procedure, from the filing of suit to revision appeal. The work also includes coverage of specialized institutions of civil justice such as family law procedure, special streamlined warning and check procedures, execution, bankruptcy and arbitration, as well as extended treatment of German civil justice in international matters. The book concludes with a comparative analysis of the salient features of German civil litigation with Anglo-American civil justice institutions and procedures. German Civil Justice is oriented to lawyers, law professors, and law students who wish to obtain a basic understanding of the workings of the German civil justice system, current law and policy issues of that system, and how the German system compares with systems in Great Britain and the United States. The work contains abundant citations to additional sources for readers who seek more detailed knowledge of individual topics and issues. Chapter 1 of the book contains a brief overview of the system as a whole that is suitable for introductory purposes in courses with some other main focus.

The flood of self-represented litigants coming to court today requires a reassessment of American evidentiary traditions.