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The Cost Of Law: Promoting Access To Justice Through The (Un)Corporate Practice Of Law, Gillian K. Hadfield
The Cost Of Law: Promoting Access To Justice Through The (Un)Corporate Practice Of Law, Gillian K. Hadfield
Gillian K Hadfield
The U.S. faces a mounting crisis in access to justice. Vast numbers of ordinary Americans represent themselves in routine legal matters daily in our over-burdened courts. Obtaining ex ante legal advice is effectively impossible for almost everyone except larger corporate entities, organizations and governments. In this paper, I explain why, as a matter of economic policy, it is essential that the legal profession abandon the prohibition on the corporate practice of law in order to remedy the access problem. The prohibitions on the corporate practice of law rule out the use of essential organizational and contracting tools widely used in …
Innovating To Improve Access: Changing The Way Courts Regulate Legal Markets, Gillian K. Hadfield
Innovating To Improve Access: Changing The Way Courts Regulate Legal Markets, Gillian K. Hadfield
Gillian K Hadfield
The vast majority of ordinary Americans lack any real access to courts as they struggle to navigate a world that is increasingly shaped by legal rules and obligations. Often this means simply forgoing legal rights and entitlements or giving up in the face of claims of wrongdoing. Among those who cannot avoid courts–such as those facing eviction, collection, or foreclosure and those seeking child support, custodial access, or protection from violence or harassment–the vast majority–as many as 99 percent in some cases–find themselves in court without any legal assistance at all. There are many reasons for this lack of meaningful …
Microfoundations Of The Rule Of Law, Gillian K. Hadfield, Barry R. Weingast
Microfoundations Of The Rule Of Law, Gillian K. Hadfield, Barry R. Weingast
Gillian K Hadfield
Many social scientists rely on the rule of law in their accounts of political or economic development. Many however simply equate law with a stable government capable of enforcing the rules generated by a political authority. As two decades of largely failed efforts to build the rule of law in poor and transition countries and continuing struggles to build international legal order demonstrate, we still do not understand how legal order is produced, especially in places where it does not already exist. We here canvas literature in the social sciences to identify the themes and gaps in the existing accounts. …
Constitutions As Coordinating Devices, Gillian K. Hadfield, Barry R. Weingast
Constitutions As Coordinating Devices, Gillian K. Hadfield, Barry R. Weingast
Gillian K Hadfield
Why do successful constitutions have the attributes characteristically associated with the rule of law? Why do constitutions involve public reasoning? And, how is such a system sustained as an equilibrium? In this paper, we adapt the framework in our previous work on “what is law?” to the problem of constitutions and their enforcement (see Hadfield and Weingast 2012, 2013a,b). We present an account of constitutional law characterized by two features: a system of distinctive reasoning and process that is grounded in economic and political functionality; and a set of legal attributes such as generality, stability, publicity, clarity, non-contradictoriness, and consistency. …