International Civil Procedure
Today I had two hours of INTERNATIONAL CIVIL PROCEDURE (Internationales Zivilfahrensrecht). Whew. The professor, Prof. Behr, is great -- he talks relatively slowly, uses a lot of inflection and pauses for emphasis, and imparts on us his own brand of humor. He did come up with one classic today:
"Foreign judgments are just about as valuable in Germany as toilet paper, just not as soft."
(For those who don't find that funny, at least now you know that I pay attention in class and understand what they're talking about.)
What this means is that if a U.S. judge in a tort action decides that a German defendant needs to pay monetary damages to an American plaintiff, and the German defendant is no longer in America but is now back in Germany, if the American plaintiff goes to Germany and tries to get a German court to force the German defendant to pay the award, the American plaintiff will probably be told "not our problem" as the German court throws out the case. Bummer. But I did learn that "full faith and credit" is also alive and well over here. Say a judge in Hamburg awards monetary damages to a plaintiff, to be paid by a defendant in Augsburg. If the Augsburg guy won't pay, the Hamburg guy can go to an Augsburg court and the Hamburg court's judgment will be recognized as valid. It's the same deal in America.
So as they were talking about civil procedure I had to go way back in the memory bank to remember what I learned about jurisdiction, venue, standing, etc. As it turns out, not a lot. Should be a fun few months. At least I have my computer here with all my first year outlines, and I can go back to them and try to remember what we talked about.
We American law students do have an advantage over the German law students in a situation like this in that we learn civil procedure during the first year of law school, whereas German law students learn it right before they take their first "Staatsexam" (kind of like the bar exam in America). So because I have already had civil procedure at home, the concepts are not overly foreign to me.
In Germany, it works like this: law students study for a few years, then take the first Staatsexam, then work in an internship for a while, then take the SECOND Staatsexam, then they're done (if they've passed everything). They wait to have civil procedure until right before the students start their internships, because they'll actually be using it when they're working as interns for lawyers. I think it might be harder to become a lawyer over here because there are two big exams involved, although in America we have to go to school for longer (undergrad and then law school). In Germany law is an undergrad subject, so students, in effect, can become lawyers after only 5 or 6 years. Still, it seems really difficult and I'm glad I am becoming a lawyer in America.
"Foreign judgments are just about as valuable in Germany as toilet paper, just not as soft."
(For those who don't find that funny, at least now you know that I pay attention in class and understand what they're talking about.)
What this means is that if a U.S. judge in a tort action decides that a German defendant needs to pay monetary damages to an American plaintiff, and the German defendant is no longer in America but is now back in Germany, if the American plaintiff goes to Germany and tries to get a German court to force the German defendant to pay the award, the American plaintiff will probably be told "not our problem" as the German court throws out the case. Bummer. But I did learn that "full faith and credit" is also alive and well over here. Say a judge in Hamburg awards monetary damages to a plaintiff, to be paid by a defendant in Augsburg. If the Augsburg guy won't pay, the Hamburg guy can go to an Augsburg court and the Hamburg court's judgment will be recognized as valid. It's the same deal in America.
So as they were talking about civil procedure I had to go way back in the memory bank to remember what I learned about jurisdiction, venue, standing, etc. As it turns out, not a lot. Should be a fun few months. At least I have my computer here with all my first year outlines, and I can go back to them and try to remember what we talked about.
We American law students do have an advantage over the German law students in a situation like this in that we learn civil procedure during the first year of law school, whereas German law students learn it right before they take their first "Staatsexam" (kind of like the bar exam in America). So because I have already had civil procedure at home, the concepts are not overly foreign to me.
In Germany, it works like this: law students study for a few years, then take the first Staatsexam, then work in an internship for a while, then take the SECOND Staatsexam, then they're done (if they've passed everything). They wait to have civil procedure until right before the students start their internships, because they'll actually be using it when they're working as interns for lawyers. I think it might be harder to become a lawyer over here because there are two big exams involved, although in America we have to go to school for longer (undergrad and then law school). In Germany law is an undergrad subject, so students, in effect, can become lawyers after only 5 or 6 years. Still, it seems really difficult and I'm glad I am becoming a lawyer in America.
posted by Jennifer at 04:47
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