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Full-Text Articles in Law

Dilemmas Of Group Autonomy: Residential Associations And Community, Gregory S. Alexander Dec 2014

Dilemmas Of Group Autonomy: Residential Associations And Community, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

We are a society of groups. De Tocqueville's observation that the principle of association shapes American society remains as valid today as it was in the mid-nineteenth century. For us, as for others, the vita activa is participation in a seemingly limitless variety of groups. The importance of group activity in our national character has strongly influenced the agenda of political questions that recur in American political and legal theory. One of the fundamental normative questions on this agenda concerns the proper relationship between groups and the polity. To what extent should the polity foster connections between associations and the …


The Transformation Of Trusts As A Legal Category, 1800-1914, Gregory Alexander Dec 2014

The Transformation Of Trusts As A Legal Category, 1800-1914, Gregory Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Sometimes we are least aware of that which most affects us. So it seems with respect to legal categories. Lawyers do not take legal categories very seriously today. But they should. Legal categories are central to legal reasoning; indeed it is almost impossible to imagine legal reasoning without the use of categories. Categorical thinking affects every area of law. The purpose of this article is to illuminate, through a case-study, the contingent and ideological character of legal categories. It focuses on the development of trusts into and then as a discrete legal category during the period between the beginning of …


A Cognitive Theory Of Fiduciary Relationships, Gregory S. Alexander Dec 2014

A Cognitive Theory Of Fiduciary Relationships, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Is there anything special or distinctive about fiduciary relationships? Or is the term "fiduciary" nothing more than a label that obscures rather than clarifies? Recently, several law-and-economics scholars, building on the economic literature on agency costs, have argued that nothing categorically distinguishes fiduciary from nonfiduciary legal relationships. So-called fiduciary relationships, they argue, are nothing more or less than contractual relationships. This Essay hypothesizes that courts possess a fairly well-developed schema of the fiduciary role, but have not developed a comparable schema for ordinary contracting parties. The fiduciary role-schema often makes courts more likely to over-interpret behavior of fiduciaries than in …


Comparing The Two Legal Realisms—American And Scandinavian, Gregory S. Alexander Dec 2014

Comparing The Two Legal Realisms—American And Scandinavian, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.


The Concept Of Property In Private And Constitutional Law: The Ideology Of The Scientific Turn In Legal Analysis, Gregory S. Alexander Dec 2014

The Concept Of Property In Private And Constitutional Law: The Ideology Of The Scientific Turn In Legal Analysis, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

In recent academic writing on the general problem of constitutional protection of property under the takings clause and due process clauses, a mode of analysis has emerged that is evidently different from the conventional analysis of constitutional property claims. In general terms, this new mode is characterized by an effort to analyze claims on an openly teleological and systematic basis. To be sure, this mode is not exclusively of recent origin. But it is a discernible trend in the body of scholarship that discusses constitutional protection of property in the context of previously unfamiliar sorts of private economic interests. Most …


Talking About Difference: Meanings And Metaphors Of Individuality, Gregory Alexander Dec 2014

Talking About Difference: Meanings And Metaphors Of Individuality, Gregory Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

This paper discusses the relationship between communitarianism and difference theory. Specifically, it focuses on the rhetorical practices that have created an apparent conflict between difference theory and communitarianism. My purpose is to suggest why this conflict dissolves when community and difference are understood as strategic rhetorics that share a common political vision.


Property As Propriety, Gregory S. Alexander Dec 2014

Property As Propriety, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

No abstract provided.


The Concept Of Function And The Basis Of Regulatory Interests Under Functional Choice-Of-Law Theory: The Significance Of Benefit And The Insignificance Of Intention, Gregory S. Alexander Dec 2014

The Concept Of Function And The Basis Of Regulatory Interests Under Functional Choice-Of-Law Theory: The Significance Of Benefit And The Insignificance Of Intention, Gregory S. Alexander

Gregory S Alexander

Recent literature and judicial opinions have recognized the need for control and consistency in choice of law. Although the formulation of choice-of-law theory in terms of the states' interests in the conflicting rules at issue has gained wide acceptance, the courts have been unable to agree upon criteria for determining when a state has a valid interest in dispute resolution. Moreover, courts frequently appear all too eager to use contemporary choice-of-law analysis to justify local regulation of multistate disputes despite insubstantial local relationships. The inconsistency and local bias both stem from the lack of a coherent theory for discerning the …