Robert G. Bone
Education
Stanford University, Stanford, CA
B.A., with Distinction, 1973
Anthropology Major with extensive coursework in Mathematics.
Honors: Phi Beta KappaHarvard Law School, Cambridge, MA
J.D., magna cum laude, 1978
Employment
October 2008 – Present
Robert B. Kent Professor in Civil Procedure, Boston University School of LawJanuary 2009 – May 2009
Visiting Professor of Law, University of Texas School of LawJune 2005 – September 2008
Professor and Richard L. Godfrey Scholar, Boston University School of LawOctober, 2000 – June 2005
Professor and Harry Elwood Warren Scholar, Boston University School of LawSeptember, 2001 – December, 2001
Visiting Professor, Harvard Law SchoolSeptember, 1989 – October, 2000
Professor, Boston University School of LawSeptember, 1998 – December, 1998
Visiting Professor, Columbia University School of LawSeptember, 1992 – August, 1994
Associate Dean, Boston University School of LawSeptember, 1987 – August 1989
Associate Professor, Boston University School of LawSeptember, 1986 – August, 1987
Visiting Professor, Boston University School of LawAugust, 1985 – August, 1986
Associate Professor, University of Southern California Law CenterAugust, 1983 – August, 1985
Assistant Professor, University of Southern California Law CenterOctober, 1979 – June, 1983
Associate, Hill & Barlow, Boston, MA.August, 1978 – August, 1979
Law Clerk to United States District Court Judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr., Boston, MA.
Honors and Awards
2008: Received the Robert B. Kent Chair in Civil Procedure
2005: Appointed as the Richard L. Godfrey Faculty Research Scholar
2005: Received the Silver Shingle Award for distinguished service to Boston University School of Law
2002: Spent three-and-a-half weeks in residence at Chuo University and Keio University and delivered two published lectures, all as part of a special program to invite leading American civil procedure scholars to Japan.
2000: Selected to deliver the 2000-2001 University Lecture at Boston University – The University Lecture is an annual lecture delivered to the university community and general public by a member of the faculty selected to honor scholarly achievement.
2000: Appointed as the Harry Elwood Warren Scholar
1999: Elected to membership in the American Law Institute
1999–2000: Maurice Poch Faculty Research Scholar.
1995-1996: Michaels Faculty Research Scholar.
1991: Received the Boston University Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching – Boston University’s highest university-wide teaching award.
Papers and Talks Presented
March 2-3, 2009 – Participated in a summit/roundtable on civil procedure reform organized by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, Denver, Colorado.
February 20-21, 2009 – Participated in and presented "Trade Secrecy, Innovation, and the Requirement of Reasonable Secrecy Precautions" to the Workshop on Trade Secrecy held at New York University School of Law, New York.
February 12, 2009 – Presented "Twombly, Pleading Rules, and the Regulation of Court Access" to a colloquium at the University of Houston Law Center, Houston, Texas.
October 14, 2008 – Presented "Twombly, Pleading Rules, and the Regulation of Court Access" to a faculty workshop, University of Texas School of Law, Austin, Texas.
September 25, 2008 – Presented "Twombly, Pleading Rules, and the Regulation of Court Access" to Boston University Law School Faculty Workshop, Boston, Massachusetts.
May 9, 2008 – Presented "A Comparative View of the American Class Action and the Italian Damage Collective Action" to Conference (Congress) on the Consumer Damage Collective Action, University of Salento, Lecce, Italy.
April 11-12, 2008 – Participated as an invited panel member discussing the trademark use doctrine at the Iowa Trademark Scholars' Roundtable, University of Iowa School of Law, Iowa.
March 24, 2008 – Presented "Is There Such a Thing as a Procedural Right?" as an informal faculty workshop at Boston University School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts.
January 4, 2008 – Presented "Making Effective Rules: The Need for Procedure Theory" to the Civil Procedure Section of the 2008 AALS Annual Meeting, New York City.
October 26, 2007 – Presented a comment on principal paper proposing digital copyright reforms at "New Media and the Marketplace of Ideas" conference held at Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts.
October 5, 2007 – Presented "Schechter's Ideas in Historical Context and Dilution's Rocky Road" to "Trademark Dilution: Theoretical and Empirical Inquiries" conference at Santa Clara University Law School, Santa Clara, California.
September 13, 2007 – Presented "'To Encourage Settlement': Rule 68, Offers of Judgment, and the History of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure" to Boston University Law School Faculty Workshop, Boston, Massachusetts.
December 8, 2006 – Presented “A Skeptical View of U.S. Anti-Dilution Law” to a conference entitled “Anti-Dilution: The Theory and the Reality of Extended Trade Mark Protection in the US and EU” held at New York University School of Law, New York, New York.
September 14, 2006 – Presented “Who Decides?: A Critical Look at Procedural Discretion” to the Boston University Faculty Workshop, Boston, Massachusetts.
April 22, 2006 – Presented “Normative Foundations of Litigation Reform” to The Role of the Judge in the Twenty-First Century Conference at Boston University School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts.
April 13, 2006 – Presented “Procedural Discretion Revisited: A Critical Look” to the Civil Justice Workshop, UC Berkeley School of Law, Berkeley, California.
October 7, 2005 – Presented “Secondary Liability for Trade Secret Misappropriation” to the Santa Clara Conference on Third Party Liability in Intellectual Property Law, Santa Clara, California.
October 6, 2005 – Presented “Hunting Goodwill: A History of the Concept of Goodwill in Trademark Law” to the University of San Francisco Law School faculty workshop, San Francisco, California
April 8, 2005 – Presented “Sir James Fitzjames Stephen and the Royal Copyright Commission” to a conference on the work of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Boston University Editorial Institute, Boston, Massachusetts.
March 21, 2005 – Presented a talk on the Class Action Fairness Act to an informal Boston University Faculty Workshop, Boston, Massachusetts
December 2, 2004 – Presented “Hunting Goodwill: A History of the Concept of Goodwill in Trademark Law” to the Boston University Faculty Workshop, Boston, Massachusetts.
September 28, 2004 – Presented “Enforcement Costs and Trademark Puzzles” to the Law and Economics Seminar at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
September 11, 2004 – Presented “Hunting Goodwill: A History of the Concept of Goodwill in Trademark Law” to the Intellectual Property Working Papers Colloquium at Boston University School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts.
June 19, 2003 – Presented “Teaching Theory Through the Rules and Cases: Law-and-Economics and Rights-Based Approaches” to the AALS Civil Procedure Conference in New York City, New York.
April 25, 2003 – Presented “Enforcement Costs and Trademark Puzzles” to the Faculty Workshop at the University of Texas School of Law, Austin, Texas.
March 27, 2003 – Presented “A Journey to the Limits of Trademark Law” to the Faculty Workshop at Boston University School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts.
July 27, 2002 – Presented lecture entitled “The American Law of Preclusion: Legal Doctrine Under Policy Pressure” at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan.
July 13, 2002 – Presented lecture entitled “Settlement in American Civil Adjudication: The Role of Procedural Law and the Courts” at Chuo University, Japan.
April 3, 2002 – Moderated a panel for the Boston University School of Law Spring Intellectual Property Forum.
February 8, 2002 – Presented “Class Certification and the Substantive Merits” at the NERA Market Insights Session, Washington, D.C.
December 6, 2001 – Presented “Procedural Fairness By Agreement” to the Boston University School of Law Faculty Workshop.
November 27, 2001 – Presented “Changing Ideas, Values, and Law: Reflections on the History of American Legal Thought and Litigation Reform,” to Food For Thought Lecture series, Boston University, Boston, MA.
May 21-22, 2001 – Presented “Linking, Aggregating, and Innovating: The Role of Property, Contract, and Tort in Regulating Access to Web Sites and Content” at the International Internet Symposium, Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey.
October 16, 2000 – Presented “The Future of Civil Adjudication: A Critical Look at Litigation Reform” as the Boston University Lecturer for 2000-2001, Boston University, Boston Massachusetts.
June 15, 2000 – Presented “Of Dot-Coms, Clickwraps, and Spiders on the Web: State Law and Technological Innovation” to the Massachusetts Appellate Judges Conference, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
February 3, 2000 – Presented “From Property to Contract: The Eleventh Amendment and University-Private Sector Intellectual Property Relationships” at a Symposium on the Eleventh Amendment and Federalism held at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, California.
May 13-19, 1999 – Presented "Exploring the Boundaries of Competitive Secrecy: An Essay on the Limits of Trade Secret Law" to International Conference on Law, Information and Information Technology at Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
October 23, 1998 – Commentator on a Panel entitled “Histories of Federal Courts: An Emerging Genre” at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History, Seattle, Washington.
October 15, 1998 – Presented “The Process of Making Process: Court Rulemaking, Democratic Legitimacy, and Procedural Efficacy” to the Faculty Workshop at Columbia University School of Law, New York, N.Y.
March 30, 1998 – Presented "The Process of Making Process: A Critical Look at Procedural Rulemaking" as a Clason Lecture at Western New England College of Law, Springfield, MA.
March 3, 1998 – Presented "Another Look at Trade Secret Law: Doctrine in Search of Justification" to the Harvard Law School Law and Economics Seminar, Cambridge, MA.
September 29, 1997 – Presented remarks on mandatory discovery and civil discovery reform as part of a panel at the First Circuit Judicial Conference, Providence, R.I.
September 2, 1997 – Presented "Another Look at Trade Secret Law: Doctrine in Search of Justification" to the Georgetown Law School Law and Economics Seminar, Washington, D.C.
November 7, 1996 – Presented "Modeling Frivolous Suits" to the Faculty Workshop at Rutgers-Camden School of Law, Camden, N.J.
October 4, 1996 – Presented "Exploring the Boundaries of Trademark and Copyright" to a Federal Judicial Center First Circuit Workshop, Hyannisport, MA.
February 7, 1996 – Presented "Lon Fuller's Theory of Adjudication" to the New York University Law School Faculty Workshop, New York, New York.
November 10, 1995 – Presented "Lon Fuller's Theory of Adjudication" to the Cornell Law School Faculty Workshop, Ithaca, New York.
September 18, 1995 – Presented "The False Dichotomy Between Dispute Resolution and Public Law Models of Litigation: Lon Fuller's Theory of Adjudication" to the Northwestern Law Faculty Workshop, Chicago, Illinois.
April 1-2, 1995 – Commentator at Conference entitled "The Intersection of Crime and Tort" held at Boston University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts.
January, 1995 – Delivered Remarks on a rights-based analysis of proposed Rule 26(c)(3) allowing disclosure of sensitive discovery material to third parties, and participated in a Panel on this topic for the Section of Civil Procedure program at the Association of American Law Schools in New Orleans, Louisiana.
October 28, 1994 – Participated on Panel at Conference entitled "Jurisdiction, Justice and Choice of Law" held at New England School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts.
March, 1993 – Commentator at Olin Conference entitled "Economic Analysis of Civil Procedure," held at the University of Virginia School of Law in Charlottesville, Virginia.
December, 1991 – Commentator for a panel entitled "Property and American Constitutional Culture" at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in Chicago, Illinois.
October, 1990 – Presented "Procedural Reform in a Local Context: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Federal Rule Model" at the Scholarly Colloquium for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's Tricentennial Celebration in Boston, MA.
October, 1988 – Presented "Ideas of Right, Remedy and Procedure: The Power of Legal Ideology in Shaping the Field Code and Federal Rule Reforms" at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History in Charleston, South Carolina.
October, 1986 – Presented "Normative Theory and Legal Doctrine in American Nuisance Law: 1850-1920" at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Legal History in Toronto, Ontario.
[And many other faculty workshops at Boston University School of Law and USC Law Center.]
Special Lectures and Teaching
September 2008, September 2007, October 2006, September 2004, September 2003, September 2002, September 2001, November 1999 - Gave lectures on copyright law each year to Professor Christopher Ricks's "The Theory and Practice of Literary Editing" class, Boston University. Also, Jan. 2006 and Feb. 2008 - Gave same lecture to Professor Frances Whistler's “Editing and Publishing” class.
July 19, 2004 – August 6, 2004 – Taught American Intellectual Property to international students in Boston University’s overseas London study program, London, UK.
October 3, 2006, September 21, 2004, September 18, 2003, September 17, 2002, September 27, 2001, November 9, 1999 – Gave lectures on copyright law each year to Professor Christopher Ricks’s “The Theory and Practice of Literary Editing” class, Boston University. Also, January 26, 2006 – Gave same lecture to Professor Frances Whistler’s “Editing and Publishing” class.
September 21, 2004, September 18, 2003, September 17, 2002, September 27, 2001, November 9, 1999 – Gave lectures on copyright law each year to Professor Christopher Ricks’s “The Theory and Practice of Literary Editing” class, Boston University.
March 19, 2002 – Presented “Who Owns Intellectual Property” to the Boston University Academy, Boston, MA.
July 12-23, 1999 – Taught a two-week class in American Trademark Law at the University of Victoria Law Faculty, British Columbia, Canada, as component of a course on American Intellectual Property Law.
March 24, 1988 – "Resolving Ownership Conflicts and Other Competing Interests: Employment Contracts and Government Contracts," given for lecture series sponsored by the Center for Law and Technology of the Boston University School of Law.
Special Professional Activities
1999-Present: Member, American Law Institute
1997-Present: Member of Advisory Committee for Litigation, Procedure, and Dispute Resolution Abstracts.
Jan. 2007 – Present: Member of Executive Committee of AALS Section on Scholarship.
September 2007 – Present: B.U. Law School representative to AALS House of Representatives.
2000 – 2006: Member of Board of Overseers of the Supreme Judicial Court Historical Society and member of the Editorial Board.
2001 – Member of Committee to Review Scholarly Papers, Association of American Law Schools – selected to serve on the committee choosing the winner of the scholarly paper competition for 2002.
2000-2003 – Served on advisory committee to the Supreme Judicial Court on technology implementation issues.
January 1994-January 1995: Member of Executive Committee of the Civil Procedure Section of the Association for American Law Schools
Public Testimony and Commentary
May, 2002 Filed amicus brief in Cadence v. Avant!, a trade secret case pending before the California Supreme Court, arguing that trade secret liability should not be based on a property theory.
Feb. 1997 Written Comments submitted to Advisory Committee on Civil Rules regarding proposed amendments to Fed. R. Civ. P. 23.
June 1985 Written Testimony submitted to Subcommittee on Criminal Justice regarding proposed amendments to Rule 83 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Feb. 1984 Oral Testimony before the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules regarding Fed. R. Civ. P. 83.
Jan. 1984 Written Testimony (with others) submitted to Advisory Committee on Civil Rules regarding proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Major Administrative Responsibilities
2008 – Present: Member, Boston University Task Force on Undergraduate Education.
2006 – Present: Member of Boston University Board of Trustees’ Academic Affairs Committee.
2005-2006, 2007–2008: Chair, Boston University School of Law Long Range Planning Committee
Aug. 2006 – March 2007: Member of Boston University Strategic Planning Task Force
Jan. – June 2006 Member of the Boston University School of Law Dean Search Committee
2004 – June 2005 Member of the (second) Boston University Presidential Search Committee
2002 – 2003 Member of the (first) Boston University Presidential Search Committee
2001 – 2003 University Intellectual Property Rights Committee – committee to review existing and draft new intellectual property rights policies for Boston University.
1997-1998 Boston University Promotion and Tenure Committee
1992-1994 Associate Dean of the Boston University School of Law
1991-1992 Member of the Boston University Metcalf Award Selection Committee
1989-1991 Chair of the Boston University School of Law Appointments Committee during a particularly busy two-year period.
1987-Present With the exception of years in which I took sabbaticals or leaves, I have served on the Faculty Appointments Committee at the Boston University School of Law for most of the years since I joined the faculty.
1983-1986 I served on the Faculty Appointments Committee at USC Law Center for 1983-1984, 1984-1985, and 1985-1986.
I helped organize the New Media and the Marketplace of Ideas conference, which took place on October 26, 2007. I also organized the Holmes Devise Lecture and Conference commemorating the 100th anniversary of The Path of the Law address at Boston University School of Law, and I helped organize a second major conference, The Crime and Tort Conference.
Association Memberships
American Law Institute
Association of American Law Schools -- member of the Section on Civil Procedure, the Section on Intellectual Property, and the Section on Legal History
American Law and Economics Association
Courses Taught
- Intellectual Property
- Civil Procedure
- Advanced Civil Procedure (Complex Litigation)
- American Legal History Seminar (co-taught)
- Seminar on Rawls and Dworkin (co-taught in Spring, 1994)
- Advanced Procedure Seminar on Game-Theoretic Modeling of Litigation (Spring, 1995 and Spring, 1996)
- and other Advanced Procedure Seminars.
Publications
"Killing Time," review of Twombley, Killing Time: Order of the Clock, Meeting House (2009), 25 Harvard Law Reivew (forthcoming).
"Discovery,," in Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, Edward Elgar (forthcoming).
"Trade Secrecy, Innovation, and the Requirement of Reasonable Secrecy Precautions," in untitled book, Edward Elgar (forthcoming).
"Twombly, Pleading Rules, and the Regulation of Court Access," 94 Iowa Law Review (forthcoming).
"'To Encourage Settlement': Rule 68, Offers of Judgment, and the History of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure," 102 Northwestern University Law Review 1561 (2009).
"Making Effective Rules: The Need for Procedure Theory," 61 Oklahoma Law Review 319 (2008).
"Schechter's Ideas in Historical Context and Dilution's Rocky Road," 24 Santa Clara Computer & High Technology Law Journal 469 (2008).
"Economic Analysis of Civil Court Procedures," in Encyclopedia of Law and Society: American and Global Perspectives, 185, David S. Clark, ed., Sage Publications (2007).
"A Skeptical View of the Trademark Dilution Revision Act," 11 Intellectual Property Law Bulletin 187 (2007).
"Who Decides: A Critical Look at Procedural Discretion," 28 Cardozo Law Review 1961 (2007).
"Hunting Goodwill: A History of the Concept of Goodwill in Trademark Law," 86 Boston University Law Review 547 (2006).
"Secondary Liability for Trade Secret Misappropriation: A Comment," 22 Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal 529 (2006).
"Securing the Normative Foundations of Litigation Reform," 86 Boston University Law Review 1155 (2006).
"Enforcement Costs and Trademark Puzzles," 90 Virginia Law Review 2099 (2004).
"The Story of Connecticut v. Doehr: Balancing Costs and Benefits in Defining Procedural Rights," in Civil Procedure Stories, 153, Foundation Press (2004).
"Agreeing to Fair Process: The Problem With Contractarian Theories of Procedural Fairness," 83 Boston University Law Review 485 (2003).
"The American Law of Preclusion: Legal Doctrine Under Policy Pressure - Part 1," 765 New Business Law 43 (2003). Republished in updated form in Amerika Minjishoyo No Riron (Theories of American Civil Procedure), M. Omura & K. Miki, eds. (2006)
"The American Law of Preclusion: Legal Doctrine Under Policy Pressure - Part 2," 766 New Business Law 73 (2003). Republished in updated form in Amerika Minjishoyo No Riron (Theories of American Civil Procedure), M. Omura & K. Miki, eds. (2006)
"The American Law of Preclusion: Legal Doctrine Under Policy Pressure - Part 3," 768 New Business Law 50 (2003). Republished in updated form in Amerika Minjishoyo No Riron (Theories of American Civil Procedure), M. Omura & K. Miki, eds. (2006)
The Economics of Civil Procedure, Foundation Press (2003). Also translated into Japanese by Atsushi Hosono as Minji soshoho no ho to keizaigaku (The Economics of Civil Procedure), Bokutakusha (2004).
"Settlement in American Civil Adjudication: The Role of Procedural Law and the Courts," 36 Comparative Law Review 1 (2003). Republished in updated form in Amerika Minjishoyo No Riron (Theories of American Civil Procedure), M. Omura & K. Miki, eds. (2006).
"Settlement in American Civil Adjudication: The Role of Procedural Law and the Courts - Part 1," 759 New Business Law 28 (2003). [Japanese]
"Settlement in American Civil Adjudication: The Role of Procedural Law and the Courts - Part 2," 761 New Business Law 51 (2003). [Japanese]
"Settlement in American Civil Adjudication: The Role of Procedural Law and the Courts - Part 3," 762 New Business Law 55 (2003). [Japanese]
"Class Certification and the Substantive Merits," with David S. Evans, 51 Duke Law Journal 1251 (2002).
"Linking, Aggregating, and Innovating: The Role of Property, Contract, and Tort in Regulating Access to Web Sites and Content," in International Internet Symposium Conference Proceedings 3-30 [English], 31-63 [Turkish], Dokuz Eylul University (2002).
"Exploring the Boundaries of Competitive Secrecy: An Essay on the Limits of Trade Secret Law," in Law, Information and Information Technology 99, E. Lederman & R. Shapira eds., Kluwer Law International (2001).
"Copyright," with Wendy Gordon, in Encyclopedia of Law & Economics 189, volume 2, B. Bouckaert and G. Degeest, eds., Edward Elgar (2000). Reprinted in The Economics of Intellectual Property, R. Towse and R.W. Holzhauer eds., Edward Elgar Publishing (2002).
"From Property to Contract: The Eleventh Amendment and University-Private Sector Intellectual Property Relationships," 33 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 1467 (2000).
"The Process of Making Process: Court Rulemaking, Democratic Legitimacy and Procedural Efficacy," 87 Georgetown Law Journal 887 (1999).
"Foreword to Symposium: The Path of the Law Today," 78 Boston University Law Review 691 (1998).
"A New Look at Trade Secret Law: Doctrine in Search of Justification," 86 California Law Review 241 (1998).
"Revisiting the Policy Case for Supplemental Jurisdiction," 74 Indiana Law Journal 139 (1998).
"Modeling Frivolous Suits," 145 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 519 (1997).
"Complex Litigation and Prior Rulings Issues: A Commentary," 29 New England Law Review 711 (1995).
"Lon Fuller's Theory of Adjudication and the False Dichotomy Between Dispute Resolution and Public Law Models of Litigation," 75 Boston University Law Review 1273 (1995).
"The Empirical Turn in Procedural Rulemaking: Comment on Walker," 23 Journal of Legal Studies 595 (1994).
"Rule 23 Redux: Empowering the Federal Class Action," 14 Review of Litigation 79 (1994).
"Procedural Reform in a Local Context: The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Federal Rule Model," in The Law in Massachusetts: Supreme Judicial Court 1692-1992, PUBLISHER (1993).
"Statistical Adjudication: Rights, Justice and Utility in a World of Process Scarcity," 46 Vanderbilt Law Review 561 (1993).
"Rethinking the `Day In Court' Ideal and Nonparty Preclusion," 67 New York University Law Review 193 (1992).
"Personal and Impersonal Litigative Forms: Reconceiving the History of Adjudicative Representation," 70 Boston University Law Review 213 (1990). Review Essay
"Mapping the Boundaries of a Dispute: Conceptions of Ideal Lawsuit Structure from the Field Code to the Federal Rules," 89 Columbia Law Review 1 (1989).
"Normative Theory and Legal Doctrine in American Nuisance Law: 1850 to 1920," 59 Southern California Law Review 1101 (1986).