A 31-year-old legal article written by Urhobo born and Delta Central senatorial aspirant, Prof. Alexander Osondu Akpodiete, has resurfaced in the United States legal literature after being cited in a 2009 American University Law Review article on federal court jurisdiction.
Akpodiete, who wrote the original article as a young lawyer in 1995, said the development offered a striking reminder of the lasting impact of legal scholarship.
His article, titled “Reconciling Plaintiff’s Choice to Sue in State Court With Defendant’s Desire to Defend in Federal Court,” was published in the October 1995 edition of The Florida Bar Journal, shortly after he obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Miami School of Law and began practising law in the United States.
The article examined when defendants could remove cases filed in state courts to federal courts, addressing federal-question and diversity jurisdiction, the well-pleaded complaint rule, fraudulent joinder, remand and related procedural issues.
Akpodiete said his work was later cited by Paul Rosenthal in “Improper Joinder: Confronting Plaintiffs’ Attempts to Destroy Federal Subject Matter Jurisdiction,” published in Volume 59 of the American University Law Review in 2009.
Rosenthal’s article examined efforts to prevent the removal of cases to federal court and differing judicial standards for determining whether a non-diverse defendant had been improperly joined.
Akpodiete described the citation as “humbling,” saying it reinforced the enduring value of serious research and legal writing.
“Something written by a young lawyer in 1995 can remain part of the academic literature years later,” he said.
He added that his professional work had since expanded into academia, cybersecurity, digital forensics, artificial intelligence, AI governance and ethics, and executive education.
“The experience has reinforced a lesson I had regularly shares with my students: “Research and writing matter.”
He expressed gratitude for having made a contribution to the continuing legal discourse on federal civil procedure in the United States.
