Vol. 10 No. 12 (December 2000) pp. 641-642.

ON CIVIL PROCEDURE by J. A. Jolowicz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 425 pp. Cloth $95.00. ISBN: 0-521-58419-1.

Reviewed by Herbert M. Kritzer, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Email: kritzer@polisci.wisc.edu.

John Jolowicz is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Law at the University of Cambridge. This volume brings together a number of his essays, many dating back to the 1970s and early 1980s, on the broad topic of civil procedure. Sixteen of the nineteen chapters have previously appeared in some form. Although many have had at least some updating, two of the new chapters are the first chapter, which essentially provides a systematic definition of civil litigation, and the last chapter, which is a brief commentary on the civil justice reforms implemented in England in the wake of a review and set of recommendations prepared by Lord Woolf (a senior Law Lord) at the request of the Lord Chancellor.

As is likely to be true of any collection of this type, there is a commonality of theme but much less in terms of a common analysis and argument. Jolowicz suggests in his introduction that his goal is to indicate how analyses of civil litigation and the procedure that governs it must be seen as something more than simply a civilized approached to dispute resolution, i.e., more than "civilisation's substitute for vengeance" (p. 4). Put another way, he wants to suggest that we need to look at civil procedure as representing more than the rules governing a procedure for peaceful dispute resolution.

The nineteen chapters are grouped into six categories or sections: the litigation process; protection of diffuse, fragmented and collective interests (i.e., procedures for aggregations such as class action in the U. S.); procedural modes (e.g., adversarial vs. inquisitorial, civil vs. administrative); the parties and the judge; recourse against judgment (i.e., appeals); and procedural reform. All of the topics covered are important and interesting, but the general theme of taking a broad view of the purposes of civil litigation and civil procedure is left largely implicit rather than being clearly woven into the chapters.

One might suspect that the general theme that Jolowicz wants to suggest is something that he has come to recognize over the course of a career of writing and teaching about civil justice. One could imagine the essays organized in a fashion that might show how this recognition evolved over time (which would be a different organization that the topical framework that is employed). Alternatively, to the degree that Jolowicz sees this theme more clearly in his various essays (something that is not altogether obvious to me in most of them), one might have wished that he had used the separate essays as a starting point for an integrated analysis. Chapters therefore might have drawn on the original essays but only as a starting point for a book that went well beyond the sum of a set of previous published writings.

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The essays in the volume are clearly the work of a law professor, and importantly a law professor who evidences no interest in or familiarity with the empirical research that has been conducted on civil litigation. Extensive empirical research was carried out both in connection with Lord Woolf's review, and with regard to the previous Civil Justice Review done by the Lord Chancellor's Department in the mid-1980s. There is a significant body of empirical research on civil justice processes and research in both the United States and Britain, but Jolowicz evidences either no knowledge of this literature or no interest in it. One could imagine many places in the book where the discussions would have been enhanced had Jolowicz sought to integrate the insights from empirical research.

In the end, the value of this book is largely as a means of accessing the writings of a scholar who has contributed importantly over the years. Many of the chapters/essays are useful and informative on particular issues and points. A scholar interested in either civil procedure in England or in a comparative look at a variety of issues concerning civil procedure will find the collection useful. However, if one is looking for a systematic discussion of comparative approaches to civil procedure and civil litigation, this book will be a disappointment.

Copyright 2000 by the author, Herbert M. Kritzer