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INTRODUCTIONAs the recurring efforts to reform the discovery rules over the past thirty-five years attest, (1) discovery is controversial. The basic critiques--costliness and, relatedly, potential for abuse--are a by-product of [...], This Article proposes a system in which both parties are provided an opportunity to opt out of discovery. Aparty who opts out is immunized from dispositive motions, including a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim or a motion for summary judgment. If neither party opts out of discovery, the parties waive jury-trial rights, thus giving judges the ability to use stronger case-management powers to focus the issues and narrow discovery. If one party opts out of discovery but an opponent does not, the cost of discovery shifts to the opponent. This Article justifies this proposal in both historical and efficiency terms and concludes by considering objections to the proposal.

This Article uses two recent decisions—one prohibiting incentive awards to class representatives and one permitting disgorgement of side payments to class objectors—to explore deeper connections between classaction settlements and the law of restitution. The failure to correctly apply the law of restitution led both courts astray. First, courts can approve incentive awards, as long as an award properly reflects the benefit that the representative’s efforts bestowed on the class. Second, restitution provides a basis to disgorge improper side payments to objectors, but only under conditions different from those that the court described. More broadly, attention to the substantive and remedial principles of restitution can provide useful solutions to vexing problems of class-action practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

B. How Budgets Control the Incentive to Overspend As we have seen, in some cases a party's incentive to spend excessively on litigation is rational: because the party does not [...]

An essay is presented on the future of oral arguments in American-style civil justice, and mentions oral argument at the appellate level; marginal benefit of oral argument; and modem developments in civil procedure of oral argument.

The article discusses the proposed resurrection of a trial by statistics (TBS) program in America which allows a judge to hear a small amount of the total number of cases and resolve mass disputes with varying amounts of individual damages. According to the article, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously disapproved of TBS in the 2011 case Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes. American class action litigation and liability are examined, as well as legal settlements and trials in the U.S.