Professors Jennifer Robbennolt and Verity Winship have co-authored (along with Jessica Bregant of Houston Law Center) a new article titled "Settlement Schemas: How Laypeople Understand Civil Settlement." The article is available for download on SSRN and the abstract follows:

What does the public think it means to “settle” a civil case? Most legal disputes in the United States end in an agreement to settle, but little is known about what laypeople think about settlement. To fill this gap, we took a direct approach: we asked a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults – more than one thousand of them – basic questions about settlement. We found widespread understanding about the essential nature and frequency of settlement, but persistent, though not universal, misconceptions about the details, including the role of a jury and settlement scope. Because settlement is such a pervasive part of the U.S. legal system, the system’s legitimacy turns in part on how the public understands and views civil settlement. The survey reported here provides a foundational study of the understandings and framework – the schemas – that the public bring to settlement.

Read the full article at ssrn.com.