Yeazell, Stephen | UCLA Law

B.A. Swarthmore, 1967
M.A. English and Comparative Literature, Columbia, 1968
J.D. Harvard, 1974

UCLA Law faculty since 1975

Stephen Yeazell writes about the history, theory, and dynamics of modern civil litigation. His courses correspond to these interests. He has received the campus’s highest awards for his teaching (the University's Distinguished Teaching Award), his research (the UCLA Faculty Research Lectureship), and his service (the Carole E. Goldberg award for distinguished service by an emeritus professor). He was also the first recipient of the School of Law's Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching. He has served as Associate Dean of the School of Law, as Chair of the UCLA Academic Senate, and as Interim Dean of the School of Law. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Before studying law, Professor Yeazell did graduate work in English literature and taught English and history in junior high schools in New York City, an experience, he reports, that has made him appreciate the relative calm of even the feistiest law school class. After law school, he clerked for Justice Mathew Tobriner of the California Supreme Court.

Professor Yeazell's books include From Medieval Group Litigation to the Modern Class Action (1987); Contemporary Civil Litigation (2009); Civil Procedure (10th ed., 2018, with Joanna Schwartz); and Lawsuits in a Market Economy: The Evolution of Civil Litigation (U.Chicago Press. 2018).

Bibliography

Books
- Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; With Selected Statutes and Cases (with Joanna Schwartz). Wolters Kluwer/Aspen Law & Business (2019). Prior editions: 1988-2018.
- Civil Procedure (with Joanna Schwartz). 10th ed. Wolters Kluwer/Aspen Law & Business (2018). Prior editions: 9th (20160; 8th (2012); 7th (2008); 6th (2004); 5th 2000; Little, Brown: 4th, 1996; 3rd, 1992 (with Landers & Martin); and 2nd, 1988 (with Landers & Martin). Law School Casebook Series.
- Lawsuits in a Market Economy. Univ. of Chicago Press (2018).
- Contemporary Civil Litigation. Wolters Kluwer/Aspen Law & Business (2009).
- From Medieval Group Litigation to the Modern Class Action. Yale University Press (1987).
Articles And Chapters
- Courting Ignorance: Why We Know so Little About Our Most Important Courts, 143 Daedalus 129 (2014). Full Text
- Unspoken Truths and Misaligned Interests: Political Parties and the Two Cultures of Civil Litigation, 60 UCLA Law Review 1752 (2013). UCLA Law Review | SSRN
- Transparency for Civil Settlements: NASDAQ for Lawsuits?, in Confidentiality, Transparency and the U.S. Civil Justice System, (edited by Joseph Doherty and Robert Reville and Laura Zakaras, Oxford University Press, 2012). Full Text
- Inventing Tests, Destabilizing Systems (with Kevin Clermont), 95 Iowa Law Review 821 (2010). Full Text
- When and How U.S. Courts Should Cite Foreign Law, 26 Constitutional Commentary 59 (2009).
- Socializing Law, Privatizing Law, Monopolizing Law, Accessing Law, 39 Loyola Law Review 691-717 (2006). Full Text
- Overhearing Part of a Conversation: Shutts as a Moment in a Long Dialogue, 74 University of Missouri - Kansas City Law Review 779-97 (2006). Full Text
- Comparative Law Without Leaving Home: What Civil Procedure Can Teach Criminal Procedure, and Vice Versa (with David Sklansky), 94 Georgetown Law Review 683-738 (2006).
- Punitive Damages, Descriptive Statistics, and the Economy of Civil Litigation, 79 Notre Dame Law Review 2025-44 (2004).
- Brown, The Civil Rights Movement and the Silent Litigation Revolution, 57 Vanderbilt University Law Review 1975-2003 (2004).
- Getting What We Asked For, Getting What We Paid For, and Not Liking What We Got: The Vanishing Civil Trial, 1 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 943-971 (2004).
- Re-financing Civil Litigation, 51 DePaul Law Review 183-217 (2001). Full Text
- Meeting the Enemy, 50 DePaul Law Review 667-74 (2000).
- Judging Rules, Ruling Judges, 61 Law & Contemporary Problems 229-52 (1998). Abstract
- Good Judging and Good Judgment, 35 Court Review 8-10 (1998).
- Teaching Supplemental Jurisdiction, 74 Indiana Law Journal 241-50 (1998). Symposium: A Reappraisal of the Supplemental-Jurisdiction Statute.
- The Past and Future of Defendant and Settlement Classes in Collective Litigation, 39 Arizona Law Review 687-704 (1997). Abstract
- The Misunderstood Consequences of Modern Civil Process, 1994 Wisconsin Law Review 631-78 (1994).
- The New Jury and the Ancient Jury Conflict, 1990 University of Chicago Legal Forum 87-117 (1990).
- Collective Litigation as Collective Action, 1989 University of Illinois Law Review 43-68 (1989).
- The Salience of Salience: A Comment on Professor Hazard’s Authority in the Dock, 69 Boston University Law Review 481-86 (1989).
- Default and Modern Process, in Legal History in the Making, 125-43 (edited by William M. Gordon and T. D. Fergus, Hambledon, 1987). Reprinted in Legal History in the Making: Proceedings of the Ninth British Legal History Conference, Glasgow, 1989, 125-44 (edited by William M. Gordon and T. D. Fergus, Hambledon, 1991).
- Contributor, in Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, (edited by Leonard W. Levy, Kenneth L. Karst et al., Macmillan, 1986).
- Convention, Fiction, and Law, 13 New Literary History 89-102 (1982).
- From Group Litigation to Class Action: Part I: The Industrialization of Group Litigation, 27 UCLA Law Review 514-64 (1980). Part II: Interest, Class, and Representation, 1067-121.
- The Ordinary and the Extraordinary in Institutional Litigation (with Theodore Eisenberg), 93 Harvard Law Review 464-517 (1980).
- Group Litigation and Social Context: Toward a History of the Class Action, 77 Columbia Law Review 866-96 (1977). Reprinted in The Structure of Procedure 255-70 (edited by Robert M. Cover and Owen M. Fiss, Foundation Press, 1979).
- Intervention and the Idea of Litigation: A Commentary on the Los Angeles School Case, 25 UCLA Law Review 244-60 (1977).
Other
- Civil Litigation is Misunderstood. Here's Why, The National Law Journal (Sept. 27, 2018).
- Book Review, 15 Law & History Review 432-33 (1997). Reviewing Law and the Company We Keep, by Aviam Soifer.
- Book Review, 13 Law & History Review 444-46 (1995). Reviewing The Law of the Other: The Mixed Jury and Changing Conceptions of Citizenship, Law and Knowledge, by Marianne Constable.
- Whose Interest Is It, Anyway? The Special Prosecutor Case Is Really About Attorney-Client Relationships, 10 National Law Journal 13 (May 30, 1988).
- Book Review, Professional Lives and the Life of a Profession, 4 Reviews in American History 483-89 (1977). Reviewing American Lawyers in a Changing Society, 1776-1876, by Maxwell Bloomfield.
- Book Review, Roscoe Pound and the Strategy of Professionalism, 3 Reviews in American History 354-58 (1975). Reviewing Roscoe Pound: Philosopher of Law, by David Wigdor.

Courses Available

LAW 145