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Full-Text Articles in Law

The Strategy Of Boilerplate, Robert B. Ahdieh Mar 2006

The Strategy Of Boilerplate, Robert B. Ahdieh

Faculty Scholarship

Boilerplate can be exciting. It is this, perhaps hard-to-swallow, proposition that the present analysis attempts to convey. Particularly in invoking the work of Thomas Schelling on the role of focal points in coordination games, it offers what can be characterized as a "strategic" theory of boilerplate, in which boilerplate plays an active, even aggressive, role.

Contrary to the relatively inert quality of boilerplate implied by conventional treatments in the legal literature, boilerplate may serve essential signaling and coordination functions in contract bargaining. In appropriate circumstances, its proposed usage may be a valuable weapon in the arsenal of a bargaining party, …


Boilerplate And Economic Power In Auto Manufacturing Contracts, Omri Ben-Shahar, James J. White Jan 2006

Boilerplate And Economic Power In Auto Manufacturing Contracts, Omri Ben-Shahar, James J. White

Articles

This Article is structured as follows. Part I compares the terms and conditions in the purchase orders of the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and highlights important differences in the substance of these boilerplate provisions. It argues that these differences cannot be easily reconciled with the prediction that sophisticated parties draft the most efficient boilerplate terms. Part II examines how these forms are drafted, how their terms are negotiated, and how the OEMs guard their terms from erosion. It provides some insight on how tailoring occurs and how the internal organization of a party to a deal affects the terms that …


Foreword [To Boilerplate: Foundations Of Market Contracts Symposium], Omri Ben-Shahar Jan 2006

Foreword [To Boilerplate: Foundations Of Market Contracts Symposium], Omri Ben-Shahar

Articles

It is tempting to open this symposium with yet another "boilerplate" salute to the challenge that standard-form contracts pose for contract law doctrine. You may have seen many tributes to this fundamental problem. If I were to offer my own variation on this familiar introduction, I would have perhaps tried to come up with an original spin to induce you to read forward another paragraph or two. I would probably have talked about a major divide within contract law between the "law of negotiations" and "product regulation." The former is the body of doctrines that determine the legal consequences of …