THESE ARE A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS

[...]I joined the Section of Litigation while still in law school and have now been a member for three decades. How can we provide satisfactory hearings to the many litigants who seek them-especially individuals in mass tort actions (such as asbestos claims), multiple-defendant criminal causes, civil rights causes, and economically modest civil claims of all sorts? [...]the uncertainty of hoping that six or 12 jurors can be appropriately informed about the factual complexities of a sophisticated commercial dispute-and objective enough to divorce themselves from their implicit biases and inherent prejudices-is more likely to compel litigants to choose the certainty of a self-directed settlement than all the rules changes we can write. Elevation of these and other issues affecting our system of justice and dispute resolution, including fostering healthy debate, has been a hallmark of the Section of Litigation and this journal for more than 45 years.