Foreword: settler's remorse.

Michigan Law Review, April, 2007 by Abrams, Floyd

INTRODUCTION

Who can quarrel with the notion that settling civil cases is generally a good thing? Litigation is expensive, time-consuming, preoccupying, and often personally destructive. Our courts ate overburdened and, in any event, imperfect decision-making entities. It may even be true that, more often than not, "the absolute result of a trial is not as high a quality of justice as is the freely negotiated, give a little, take a little settlement." (1)

But not every case should be settled. Many are worthless. The settlement of others could too easily lead to a torrent of unwarranted litigation. Sometimes, as Professor Owen Fiss has observed, parties "settle while leaving justice undone." (2) While few of the settlements I have been involved with...

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