Abstract
Most U.S. lawyers, I suspect, could tell you that personal jurisdiction usually depends on the defendant having “minimum contacts” with the forum state. This is true for state courts. They must have state law authorization for jurisdiction (usually through what is known as a “long-arm statute”) and the defendant must—in general—have minimum contacts with the forum state to satisfy the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. This is also true in the vast majority of federal court cases, even when exercising federal question subject matter jurisdiction. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(1)(A), federal courts usually adopt the long-arm statutes of their home state even in federal-question cases, and famous minimum-contacts cases have been brought in federal court.