Law Commons^™

Turning The Firm Into A School: Help Your Associates Learn To Draft Contracts – The Right Way, Charles C. Lewis

Charles C. Lewis

No abstract provided.

Lo Que Usted Debe Saber Al Invertir En Una Franquicia En México, Rodolfo C. Rivas Rea Esq., Marco A. Vargas Iñiguez Esq.

Rodolfo C. Rivas

The authors provide a brief account of the increasing importance of franchises in the current economic environment. Furthermore, in this walkthrough the authors discuss the existing legal regime for franchises in Mexico and provide an analysis of the negotiating positions involved in successfully developing a franchise.//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////Los autores proporcionan un breve estudio sobre la creciente importancia de las franquicias en el entorno económico actual. Además, los autores analizan el régimen jurídico vigente para las franquicias en México y ofrecen un análisis sobre las negociaciones necesarias para el desarrollo exitoso de una franquicia.

Is There A Duty To Negotiate In Good Faith?, Michael Philip Furmston

Michael Philip FURMSTON

One of the most interesting questions concerning modern contract lawyers is whether, and if so when, there may be a duty on parties to a contract to negotiate in good faith? This may seem an odd question for an English lawyer to raise, granted the refusal of the House of Lords in Walford v. Miles [1992] 2 A.C. 128 to recognise even the effectiveness of an agreement to negotiate in good faith but this case has not escaped cogent criticism (Neill (1992) 108 L.Q.R. 405) and it rests on an axiom (that this is a duty which cannot be enforced) …

Dysfunctional Contracts And The Laws And Practices That Enable Them: An Empirical Analysis, Debra P. Stark, Jessica M. Choplin

Debra Pogrund Stark

The main function of entering into a contract is for both parties to be bound through being exposed to negative consequences if they breach. A review of purchase agreement forms used by condominium developers in Chicago, Illinois discovered that 79% eliminate the negative consequences for sellers by providing for highly one-sided remedies wherein the buyer’s sole remedy in the event of the seller’s breach was the return of the buyer’s own earnest money while reserving significant remedies to the developer in the event of the buyer’s default. Courts in many jurisdictions have refused to strike down this type of limitation …

Impracticability As A Defense To Contract Enforcement, Richard S. Wirtz

Richard S. Wirtz

No abstract provided.

Adr's Place In Foreclosure: Remedying The Flaws Of A Securitized Housing Market, Lydia Nussbaum

Lydia R. Nussbaum

Millions of Americans lost their homes during the foreclosure crisis, an unprecedented disaster still plaguing local and national economies. A primary factor contributing to the crisis has been the failure of conventional foreclosure procedures to account for the new realities of securitization and the secondary mortgage market, which transformed the traditional borrower-lender relationship. To compensate for the shortcomings of conventional foreclosure procedures and stem the tide of residential foreclosure, state and local governments turned to ADR processes for a solution. Some foreclosure ADR programs, however, have greater potential to avoid unnecessary foreclosures than others. This article comprehensively examines the key …

The Dog That Didn't Bark: Private Investment Funds And Relational Contracts In The Wake Of The Great Recession, Robert Illig

Robert C Illig

In the aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis, the contract rights of numerous hedge funds and venture capital funds were breached. These contracts were complex and sophisticated and had been negotiated at great time and expense. Yet despite all of the assumptions of neo-classical contracts theory, nothing happened. Practically none of these injured parties sued to enforce their rights. Professor Illig uses this dearth of litigation to conduct a form of natural experiment as to the value of contract law. Discrete market participants contracted before the crash and then pursued their rights in court afterwards, while relational market participants contracted …

Embryo Disposition Agreements: The Effect Of Personal Autonomy, Constitutional Rights, And Public Policy On Enforceability, Damages, And Remedies, Nicholas Seger

Nicholas D. Seger

No abstract provided.

Classical Contract Law, Past And Present, Anat Rosenberg

Anat Rosenberg

This paper synthesizes and refocuses a wide range of histories of nineteenth-century contract law. It uncovers an inadvertent consensus among historians: despite significant controversies engaging rival historical schools of contract law, it is almost universally agreed that nineteenth-century law embodied an elaborate version of individualism; that the alternatives to its individualism were status and collectivism — but they functioned as external critiques and so left contract's conceptual link with individualism intact; and that the individualism grounded in contract law was in keeping with broad cultural mores. The consensus effectively entrenches a questionable historical artifact: the idea of a single meaning …

The Story Of Ymps ("Yield Maintenance Premiums") In Bankruptcy, Ingrid Michelsen Hillinger, Michael G. Hillinger

Ingrid Michelsen Hillinger

No abstract provided.

Renewing The Bayh-Dole Act As A Default Rule In The Wake Of Stanford V. Roche, Parker Tresemer

Parker Tresemer

Since its enactment in 1980, the Bayh-Dole Act has incentivized university and private industry investment in new technologies by granting them exclusive patent rights to their inventors’ federally funded technologies. The Supreme Court’s holding in Stanford v. Roche, however, threatens to stall American innovation by undermining the Act’s intended structure for disposition of intellectual property rights. Congress enacted the Bayh-Dole Act to solve a specific problem: stagnating technological innovation in the decades after World War II. Universities and private companies are unwilling to commercialize basic federally funded technologies without exclusive rights to those technologies. The Congressional record surrounding the Bayh-Dole …

Best Practices For Drafting University Technology Assignment Agreements After Filmtec, Stanford V. Roche, And Patent Reform, Parker Tresemer

Parker Tresemer

Since the end of World War II, federally funded universities and private companies have been an integral part of continued American innovation and technological production. However, like most rational economic actors, universities and private companies are only willing to invest in federally funded technologies if they are guaranteed some sort of exclusive return on their investment. By granting federal contractors exclusive patent rights to their employee’s federally funded inventions, the Bayh-Dole Act provided the necessary incentives for private sector investment in federally funded technologies. However, case law subsequent to Bayh-Dole’s enactment has significantly undermined the system of incentives Congress intended …

Principles Of Contracts For Governing Services, Tom Bell

Tom W. Bell

The state provides governance services within a specified territory, demanding payment in the form of taxes, regulations, and compulsory service. Some citizens expressly consent to that bargain, as when the President of the United States swears to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution. With regard to many of its subjects, however, the state can claim no more than hypothetical consent, leaving its use of force only weakly justified. Governing services provided under contract, founded in express consent, enjoy a more justified relationship with their citizen-customers. Private institutions already provide the same legal services as the state, offering rules, dispute resolution, …

An 'All Of The Above' Theory Of Legal Development (Revised), Larry A. Dimatteo

Larry A DiMatteo

The paper provides a brief background of Nathan Isaacs, his work, and his theory of legal development. Invariably, when analyzing Isaacs’ claim that history proves that law developments in cycles (status to contract to status) the role of Jewish legal history in the development of his thought will play an important role in understanding his theory. Isaacs’ was that rare scholar knowledgeable in the common law, as well as, civil law. A pragmatic realist, as well as a devote Jew. He was a legal historian and very much a man of the present. He possessed a Ph.D. in Economics, and …

Judging Lite: How Arbitrators Use And Create Precedent, W. Mark C. Weidemaier

W. Mark C. Weidemaier

Reforming Sovereign Lending: Modern Initiatives In Historical Context, W. Mark C. Weidemaier

W. Mark C. Weidemaier

How Markets Work: The Lawyer's Version, W. Mark C. Weidemaier, Mitu Gulati

W. Mark C. Weidemaier

The “Ensuing Loss” Clause In Insurance Policies: The Forgotten And Misunderstood Antidote To Anti-Concurrent Causation Exclusions, Chris French

Christopher C. French

As a result of the 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco which destroyed the city, a clause known as the “ensuing loss” clause was created to address concurrent causation situations in which a loss follows both a covered peril and an excluded peril. Ensuing loss clauses appear in the exclusions section of such policies and in essence they provide that coverage for a loss caused by an excluded peril is nonetheless covered if the loss “ensues” from a covered peril. Today, ensuing loss clauses are found in “all risk” property and homeowners policies, which cover all losses except for …

The “Non-Cumulation Clause”: An “Other Insurance” Clause By Another Name, Chris French

Christopher C. French

How long-tail liability claims such as asbestos bodily injury claims and environmental property damage claims are allocated among multiple triggered policy years can result in the shifting of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars from one party to another. In recent years, insurers have argued that clauses commonly titled, “Prior Insurance and Non-Cumulation of Liability” (referred to herein as “Non-Cumulation Clauses”), which are found in commercial liability policies, should be applied to reduce or eliminate their coverage responsibilities for long-tail liability claims by shifting their coverage responsibilities to insurers that issued policies in earlier policy years. The insurers’ argument …

Debunking The Myth That Insurance Coverage Is Not Available Or Allowed For Intentional Torts Or Damages, Christopher French

Christopher C. French