Highlighting some of its achievements of the past six months, the Civil Justice Research Initiative (CJRI) at Berkeley Law School began its biennial advisory board meeting with a discussion of key findings in a paper on civil juries, co-authored by CCL President Robert S. Peck, along with law professors Richard Jolly and Valerie Hans. The paper, published in November, provided a history of civil juries, a review of key precedents on the use of juries, and empirical data on the negligible number of jury trials being held, while studies uniformly confirm that jurors do a good job. It also contains recommendations on how to revive this necessary institution.

    All three authors are members of the advisory board at CJRI, an initiative started by Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.