Law Commons^™

The Law And Economics Of Norms, Juliet P. Kostritsky

Juliet P Kostritsky

This Article examines the increased importance of norms in the law and economics of exchange. By studying how private parties bring order despite the absence of a coercive state and the idea of a norm as the result of an exchange that originates in the brain to accommodate all competing costs, one can better understand how modern states, private agreements, public laws, and market economies work in conjunction with the norms and human behavior patterns that underlie all communities. These institutions of norms, public law, private law and agreements, the state, and markets are all alternative and complementary ways of …

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

W. Mark C. Weidemaier

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

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

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, …