Ryan C. Williams

Print
Article
Volume 89.7
Jurisdiction as Power
Ryan C. Williams
Assistant Professor, Boston College Law School.

My thanks to William Baude, Kevin Clermont, Scott Dodson, Benjamin Eidelson, and Evan Tsen Lee, and to participants at workshops at Boston College Law School and the Seventh Annual Civil Procedure Workshop for helpful comments on earlier drafts.

For centuries, courts and legal commentators defined “jurisdiction” by reference to a court’s “power.” A court that lacked jurisdiction, under this conception, simply lacked the ability to bind the parties, and its resulting rulings could therefore be regarded by both litigants and later courts as void and of no legal effect.

Volumes