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Full-Text Articles in Law
Forward: Advances In The Behavioral Analysis Of Law: Markets, Institutions, And Contracts, Avishalom Tor
Forward: Advances In The Behavioral Analysis Of Law: Markets, Institutions, And Contracts, Avishalom Tor
Avishalom Tor
No abstract provided.
Are All Contracts Alike?, Margaret F. Brinig
Engagement Rings Are Barbaric, Margaret Brinig
Engagement Rings Are Barbaric, Margaret Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
Margaret Brinig was quoted in the Salon magazine article Engagement rings are barbaric
By Shannon Rupp
"The real reason for engagement rings wasn’t lost on people of that era, however, as legal scholar Margaret Brinig noted when she researched the history of breach of promise laws. With the abolition of those laws in the 1930s came an increase in the sales of engagement rings to the masses."
Penalty Defaults In Family Law: The Case Of Child Custody, Margaret F. Brinig
Penalty Defaults In Family Law: The Case Of Child Custody, Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
This paper considers whether an amendment to state divorce laws that strengthens its joint custody preference operates as a traditional default rule, specifying what most divorcing couples would choose or as a penalty default rule the parties will attempt to contract around.
While the Oregon statutes that frame our discussion here, like most state laws, do not state an explicit preference for joint custody, shared custody is certainly encouraged by Section 107.179, which refers cases in which the parties cannot agree on joint custody to mediation and by Section 107.105, which requires the court to consider awarding custody jointly. In …
Unhappy Contracts: The Case Of Divorce Settlements, Margaret F. Brinig
Unhappy Contracts: The Case Of Divorce Settlements, Margaret F. Brinig
Margaret F Brinig
This paper examines a particular type of contracts that is, sadly, increasingly frequent: the agreements produced by divorcing couples. They are unhappy contracts, agreements produced as a necessary part of exit from what is now suboptimal marriage. They are virtually required by many states and are, in theory at least, closely monitored by courts since, when children are involved, they will be incorporated into court orders.What parties to unhappy contracts do is attempt to minimize losses, rather than maximize gain. How are contracts structured that will do this, and how does a difference in the size or power of the …
Anti-Social Contracts: The Contractual Governance Of Virtual Worlds, Joshua A.T. Fairfield
Anti-Social Contracts: The Contractual Governance Of Virtual Worlds, Joshua A.T. Fairfield
Joshua A.T. Fairfield
Virtual worlds have seized the imaginations of millions of people who now live, work, and play together in these new environments. But all is not well. These online communities are ruled nearly exclusively by contract law, through end-user licence agreements, terms of service, and codes of conduct. Contracts are a critical means of helping two (or a few) people negotiate their preferences. But online communities are made up of enormous and shifting populations that have no time or ability to negotiate agreements with every other community member. Relying on contracts alone thus threatens the investments and creativity that go into …
Navigating Through The Fog Of Cloud Computing Contracts, T. Noble Foster
Navigating Through The Fog Of Cloud Computing Contracts, T. Noble Foster
T. Noble Foster
This paper explores legal issues associated with cloud computing, provides analysis and commentary on typical clauses found in contracts offered by well-known cloud service providers, and identifies strategies to mitigate the risk of exposure to cloud-based legal claims in the critical areas of data security, privacy, and confidentiality. While current research offers numerous case studies, viewpoints, and technical descriptions of cloud processes, our research provides a close examination of the language used in cloud contract terms. Analysis of these contract terms supports the finding that most standard cloud computing contracts are unevenly balanced in favor of the cloud service provider. …
The Cost Of Consent: Optimal Standardization In The Law Of Contract, Joshua A.T. Fairfield
The Cost Of Consent: Optimal Standardization In The Law Of Contract, Joshua A.T. Fairfield
Joshua A.T. Fairfield
This article argues that informed consent to contract terms is not a good to be maximized, but is rather an information cost that courts should minimize. The goal of mass-market contract law ought to be to keep costs low by encouraging contract standardization. The article applies information cost theory to show that information-forcing rules are often inefficient at both the micro- and macroeconomic levels. Such rules also impose greater costs on third parties than the benefits they create for the contracting parties. When one consumer creates an idiosyncratic deal, the information-savings benefits of standardization are reduced for all other potential …
The Search Interest In Contract, Joshua A.T. Fairfield
The Search Interest In Contract, Joshua A.T. Fairfield
Joshua A.T. Fairfield
Parties often do not negotiate for contract terms. Instead, parties search for the products, terms, and contractual counterparties they desire. The traditional negotiation centered view of contract continues to lead courts to try to construe the meaning of the parties where no meaning was negotiated, and to waste time determining the benefits of bargains that were never struck. Further, while courts have ample tools to validate specifically negotiated contract terms, courts lack the tools to respond to searched-for terms. Although the law and literature have long recognized that there is a disconnect between the legal fictions of negotiation and the …
Contract Law And Modern Economic Theory, Daniel A. Farber
Contract Law And Modern Economic Theory, Daniel A. Farber
Daniel A Farber
No abstract provided.
Another View Of The Quagmire: Unconstitutional Conditions And Contract Theory, Daniel A. Farber
Another View Of The Quagmire: Unconstitutional Conditions And Contract Theory, Daniel A. Farber
Daniel A Farber
No abstract provided.
Love And Contracts In Don Quixote, Martha Ertman
Love And Contracts In Don Quixote, Martha Ertman
Martha M. Ertman
Viewing love as a contract seems, initially, like mistaking windmills for giants, or a peasant girl for a grand lady. This chapter seeks, like Don Quixote, to convince readers to suspend their practiced views of everyday relationships in order to see them in a new light. What seems crazy at first glance may come to look as good, and sometimes better, than the more conventional view. As a law professor, I usually write about love and contracts by focusing on legal opinions and statutes, and recently I have added real-life stories from books and newspapers, as well as my …
Book Review: Legal Tenderness, Martha M. Ertman
Book Review: Legal Tenderness, Martha M. Ertman
Martha M. Ertman
No abstract provided.
An All Of The Above Theory Of Legal Development, Larry A. Dimatteo
An All Of The Above Theory Of Legal Development, Larry A. Dimatteo
Larry A DiMatteo
This paper reviews different theories of legal development in order to highlight their similarities and differences. In the end, as in contract theories, no monist view of legal development possesses the explanatory power needed to understand how law has come to be and where it may take us in the future. What we do have is a foundation built on at least two millennia of legal history. The intellectual starting point for this project is Nathan Isaacs’ unfinished work on a cycle theory of legal development. His view of legal development takes issue with Henry Sumner Maine’s thesis that development …
From Lord Coke To Internet Privacy: The Past, Present, And Future Of The Law Of Internet Contracting, Juliet Moringiello, William Reynolds
From Lord Coke To Internet Privacy: The Past, Present, And Future Of The Law Of Internet Contracting, Juliet Moringiello, William Reynolds
Juliet M Moringiello
Contract law is applied countless times every day, in every manner of transaction large or small. Rarely are those transactions reflected in an agreement produced by a lawyer; quite the contrary, almost all contracts are concluded by persons with no legal training and often by persons who do not have a great deal of education. In recent years, moreover, technological advances have provided novel methods of creating contracts. Those facts present practitioners of contract law with an interesting conundrum: The law must be sensible and stable if parties are to have confidence in the security of their arrangements; but contract …
A People's History Of Collective Action Clauses, W. Mark C. Weidemaier, Mitu Gulati
A People's History Of Collective Action Clauses, W. Mark C. Weidemaier, Mitu Gulati
W. Mark C. Weidemaier
The No Reading Problem In Consumer Contract Law, Ian Ayres, Alan Schwartz
The No Reading Problem In Consumer Contract Law, Ian Ayres, Alan Schwartz
Ian Ayres
Instead of attempting to promote informed consumer assent through quixotic attempts to have consumers read ever-expanding disclosures, this Article argues that consumer protection law should focus on ―term optimism‖ – situations in which consumers expect more favorable terms than they actually receive . We propose a system under which mass market sellers are required periodically to engage in a process of ―term substantiation‖ through which sellers would learn whether their consumers held accurate beliefs about the terms of their agreement. Terms that meet or exceed the median consumer‘s expectation would be enforceable even if buried or only available on request. …
Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French
Segmented Settlements Are Not The Answer: A Response To Professor Squire’S Article, How Collective Settlements Camouflage The Costs Of Shareholder Lawsuits, Christopher C. French
Christopher C. French
In his recent article, Professor Richard Squire offers a provocative theory in which he claims the underlying claimants in shareholder litigation against corporate policyholders are overcompensated due to what he describes as “cramdown” settlements, under which insurers are forced to settle due to the “duty to contribute” that arises under multi-layered directors and officers (“D&O”) insurance programs. He also offers a novel idea regarding how this problem could be fixed by what he refers to as “segmented” settlements in which each insurer and the policyholder would be allowed to settle separately and consider only its own interests in doing so. …
The Property Platform In Anglo-American Law And The Primacy Of The Property Concept, Donald J. Kochan
The Property Platform In Anglo-American Law And The Primacy Of The Property Concept, Donald J. Kochan
Donald J. Kochan
This Article proposes that the property concept, when reduced to its basic principles, is a foundational element and a useful lens for evaluating and understanding the whole of Anglo-American private law even though the discrete disciplines—property, tort, and contract—have their own separate and distinct existence. In this Article, a broad property concept is not focused just on things or on sticks related to things but instead is defined as relating to all things owned. These things may include one’s self and all the key elements associated with this broader set of things owned—including the right to exclude, ownership, dominion, authority, …