The U.S. Senate has announced that it will be debating new legislation to reform America’s medical malpractice law in early May. Is the Senate likely to pass useful reforms? What types of reform should they consider? What is the appropriate role of the federal government in addressing the issue and...

A recent paper by professors Paul H. Rubin and Joanna M. Shepherd of Emory University School of Law provides striking and counterintuitive evidence that tort reforms at the state level contribute to a decrease in accidental deaths. Rubin and Shepherd found that reforms such as capping noneconomic damages, requiring a...

"Off-label" prescribing--that is, doctors prescribing drugs for purposes other than those expressly approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA--is often useful although little is known of its extent. In the last several years, nearly every major pharmaceutical company has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle allegations of...

Congress is in the process of rewriting the United States' patent laws. Scientific and technological changes in virtually all markets have dramatically altered the patent system itself. Reacting to fears that patents and patent litigation could retard rather than support technological progress, legislators are poised to take action with the...

We should be cautiously optimistic about future developments as important cases about federal preemption and the scope of securities laws come before the SupremeCourt in 2007.

Noneconomic damages should be capped and objective safety standards established in order to provide a safe harbor for manufacturers from unfair liability.