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Managing Systemic Risk In Legal Systems, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The American legal system has proven remarkably robust even in the face vast and often tumultuous political, social, economic, and technological change. Yet our system of law is not unlike other complex social, biological, and physical systems in exhibiting local fragility in the midst of its global robustness. Understanding how this “robust yet fragile (RYF) dilemma operates in legal systems is important to the extent law is expected to assist in managing systemic risk, the risk of large local or even system-wide failures in other social systems. Indeed, legal system failures have been blamed as partly responsible for disasters such …