South American Law & Policy

On Tuesday afternoon, I had the great pleasure of participating in a seminar on U.S. civil law at Cochabamba´s San Simon University.  Estimated attendance was 150-180 students, and there was also a handful of professors.  I spoke for about an hour (struggling mightily at times with my limitations in Spanish), and then responded to a number of very astute questions.  The topics covered included important features of the U.S. civil justice system (the nature of our adversarial system, federalism, discovery, the right to a jury, differences between state and federal courts, etc.), as well as the basic procedural path taken by a civil case (i.e., filing of complaint through appeal).  Special thanks to Professor Neyer Zapata and Mauricio Sanchez Patzy for organizing this event.

-NF