Law Commons^™

The Futures Problem, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

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Perhaps the most difficult problem in addressing mass torts is that of future claimants. "Futures" are those who do not now have claims, because injury has not been sufficiently manifested, but who may well have claims in the future. The Supreme Court's decisions in Amchem and Ortiz appear to have foredoomed any procedural mechanism by which to resolve future claims. This, in turn, will leave defendants in mass tort cases with greatly reduced incentives to participate in mass settlement. That implication makes the possibility of reforms in substantive law perhaps more attractive. In addition, these decisions invite further questions about …

A Comprehensive Wealth Tax, David Shakow, Reed Shuldiner

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Income, consumption, and wealth are all possible bases for a tax system in the United States. Scholars have specified the structure of income tax and consumption taxes, but no one has attempted to describe in detail a comprehensive wealth tax for the United States. In this paper, we begin to develop such a structure. In particular, we hypothesize that the combination of a flat rate tax on networth and a flat rate tax on earned income along with an appropriate level of exemptions, could be an attractive tax base. In order to explore the structure of a wealth tax, we …

Understanding Lockups: Effects In Bankruptcy And The Market For Corporate Control, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

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The article investigates the effects of lockups, devices used to compensate unsuccessful bidders. Lockups are relevant in contexts in which sales have auction-like characteristics. Bankruptcy and the market for corporate control are two such situations, since the governing legal regimes prevent sales from being swiftly consummated and require sellers to take the most favorable offer that emerges during the waiting period. Existing scholarship has considered lockups in both areas. The analysis of lockups in the market for corporate control is fairly well developed. This article shows that it is importantly incomplete because it fails both to distinguish between ex ante …

The Paradox Of Silence: Some Questions About Silence As Resistance, Dorothy E. Roberts

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No abstract provided.

Raising Arizona: Reflections On Sovereignty And The Nature Of The Plaintiff In Federal Suits Against States, Catherine T. Struve

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No abstract provided.

Lockups And Delaware Venue In Corporate Law And Bankruptcy, David A. Skeel Jr.

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This article addresses two issues that have generated enormous debate in both the corporate law and the bankruptcy literature: the use of breakup fees and other lockup provisions, and Delaware's prominence as the nation's leading corporate address. The first half of the Article weighs in on the role of lockup provisions. Corporate law commentators have adopted widely divergent views of the propriety of lockups, with several calling for courts to uphold all lockups and others proposing varying levels and kinds of scrutiny. To make sense of this debate, I show that the existing literature can be distilled to three central …

Foreword: Causes And Limits Of Pessimism, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.

The Complicated Ingredients Of Wisdom And Leadership, Michael A. Fitts

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No abstract provided.

Knowledge About Welfare: Legal Realism And The Separation Of Law And Economics, Herbert J. Hovenkamp

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The welfare state could not function without judgments about how well off its citizens are. For example, governments devise progressive income taxes, which are designed to capture more wealth from the well off and less from the impecunious. These policies presume an ability to take a manageable amount of information about an individual's income or assets and make judgments about her welfare. In fact, people do this all the time, mostly without thinking about the methodological problems involved.

The superficial casualness of our daily observations about welfare belies the state of the economic science of welfare measurement. Economists have attempted …

Rationality And Responsibility, Stephen J. Morse

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No abstract provided.

The Inefficiency Of Mens Rea, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

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No abstract provided.

Why The Successful Assassin Is More Wicked Than The Unseccessful One, Leo Katz

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No abstract provided.

The Peculiar Role Of The Delaware Courts In The Competition For Corporate Charters, Jill E. Fisch

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From the classic Cary-Winter debate to current legal scholarship, commentators have struggled to explain Delaware's dominance in the market for corporate charters. Although scholars have offered nonsubstantive explanations such as network externalities, interest group dynamics, and Delaware's expert and specialized judiciary, much of the debate focuses on substantive law. This article takes another view. Arguing that a regulator can offer benefits through its lawmaking process, as well as its legal rules, the article suggests a process-oriented analysis of regulatory competition. The article focuses on the unique role of the Delaware judiciary in corporate lawmaking, a role that has received little …

Vern Countryman And The Path Of Progressive (And Populist) Bankruptcy Scholarship, David A. Skeel Jr.

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Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Vern Countryman was the leading progressive bankruptcy scholar - and in fact the leading bankruptcy scholar of any perspective. This article explores the links between Countryman's work and that of his New Deal predecessors, on the one hand, and his successors, on the other. In addition to Countryman himself, the article focuses on William Douglas, who was Countryman's predecessor and mentor, as well as being the leading bankruptcy scholar of the New Deal. Among Countryman's successors, the article focuses on the work of Elizabeth Warren, Countryman's successor at Harvard Law School and the nation's leading …

The Moral Metaphysics Of Causation And Results, Stephen J. Morse

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No abstract provided.

Teaching Corporate Governance Through Shareholder Litigation, Jill E. Fisch

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No abstract provided.

The Bitter With The Sweet: Tradition, History, And Limitations On Federal Judicial Power--A Case Study, Stephen B. Burbank

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No abstract provided.

Privatizing Regulation: Whistleblowing And Bounty Hunting In The Financial Services Industries, Henry Ordower, James Fisher, Ellen F. Harshman, William B. Gillespie, Leland Ware, Fred C. Yeager

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Addresses use of whistleblowers and suggests private enforcement methodologies to supplement or supplant public enforcement activities in financial services under new law.

Structuring The Financial Service Conglomerates Of The Future: Does The Choice Of Corporate Form To House New Financial Activities Of National Banks Matter?, Constance Z. Wagner

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The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act became law on November 12, 1999, bringing to an end a twenty year effort to expand bank powers by amending the Glass-Steagall Act and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956. Although styled as banking reform legislation, the new law will have a wide ranging impact on the financial services industry generally. A wave of merger activity will likely occur in this industry because many of the legal restrictions on bank affiliations with other financial services providers have been removed. An end result of the new legislation will be the creation of financial services conglomerates offering a …

The Separation Of Questions Of Law And Fact In The New Russian And Spanish Jury Verdicts, Stephen C. Thaman

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This article discusses the division of labor between the judge and the jury in rendering judgment, and the separation of law and fact historically and currently, focusing on Spain and Russia. Both Russia and Spain rejected the Anglo-American general verdict of “guilty” or “not-guilty” in favor of a list of questions or propositions presented to the jury during their criminal procedure reforms of the 1990’s. This article also delves into the jury deliberation, verdict, and judgment process of the two countries.

The Possibility Of A Fair Paretian, Howard F. Chang

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No abstract provided.

Corporate Finance, Corporate Law And Finance Theory, Peter H. Huang, Michael S. Knoll

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No abstract provided.

Rethinking Welfare Rights: Reciprocity Norms, Reactive Attitudes, And The Political Economy Of Welfare Reform, Amy L. Wax

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No abstract provided.

Expressive Law And Oppressive Norms: A Comment On Richard Mcadams's "A Focal Point Theory Of Expressive Law", Amy L. Wax

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No abstract provided.

Globalization And The Design Of International Institutions, Cary Coglianese

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In an increasingly globalized world, international rules and organizations have grown ever more crucial to the resolution of major economic and social concerns. How can leaders design international institutions that will effectively solve global regulatory problems? This paper confronts this question by presenting three major types of global problems, distinguishing six main categories of institutional forms that can be used to address these problems, and showing how the effectiveness of international institutions depends on achieving “form-problem” fit. Complicating that fit will be the tendency of nation states to prefer institutional forms that do little to constrain their sovereignty. Yet the …

Introduction, Anthony J. Scirica

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No abstract provided.

Copyright And Democracy: A Cautionary Note, Christopher S. Yoo

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Democratic theories of copyright have become quite the rage in recent years. A growing number of commentators have offered their views on the relationship between copyright law and the process of self-governance.' No scholar has been more committed to developing this perspective than Neil Netanel. In an important series of articles, Netanel has pursued a powerful and innovative project that attempts to reexamine copyright through the lens of democratic theory. His core concern is that the concentration of private wealth and power in communications and mass media is creating unprecedented disparities in the ability to be heard. The ""speech hierarchy"" …