In Defense of Forum Shopping: A Realistic Look at Selecting a Venue

This article discusses “forum shopping”—the act of seeking the most advantageous venue in which to try a case—and its place in the American judicial system. It defends forum shopping and those accused of forum shopping to the extent that such shopping is done within the procedural and ethical rules, and it considers some of the rules and decisions that have addressed or discussed forum shopping. Further, it calls on lawmakers—legislators and judges—to accept forum shopping as simply a procedural part of litigation, when that forum shopping takes place within the rules, and to eliminate what is deemed unacceptable forum shopping by legislatively limiting alternative forums and judicially exercising the power to transfer cases to more convenient forums.