On the afternoon of June 23, 2023, the Faculty of Civil Law, University of Law, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, held a lecture on "Litigation in civil proceedings in the United States" with the presentation of Prof. Elizabeth Porter, Law School, University of Washington (USA). More than 200 people attended the lecture both in-person and virtually via the Zoom platform, which featured lecturers from the Faculty of Civil Law.

 

In the first part of the lecture, Prof. Elizabeth Porter provided an overview of the litigation system in civil proceedings in the United States. “Currently in the US, the majority of civil cases (95%) are terminated before going to trial because the parties reach an agreement to resolve the dispute.” She said.

Besides, the Professor also highlighted the positive and negative points of the current civil procedure system in the United States. On the positive side, She said: “A litigation system trains attorneys with sharp arguments and logical thinking, thereby effectively contributing to the decision-making process of the Judge; In addition, this model not only enhances the skills of barristers but also solicitors because it was critical thinking can be applied to the process of drafting contracts, working with clients,…”. On the other hand, “The litigation model is applied to all cases so that even simple cases have to go through a lengthy, complicated process, which wastes time and resources of both parties. The second problem is the imbalance between the parties. Specifically, the party who hires superior attorneys and has resources to find evidence will have a much higher chance of winning the case than the remaining party" She added.

 

After the break, Prof. Porter continued to clarify issues about the trends of the litigation system in the United States and the problems this model is facing,... through questions from scholars and students.

At the end of the lecture, Dr. Nguyen Bich Thao thanked Prof. Elizabeth Porter for attending and providing novel knowledge about the litigation model in civil proceedings in the United States. She expected that the University of Law will have the opportunity to cooperate with the Professor in other academic events.