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Full-Text Articles in Law
Formalism In Contract Exposition, Gregory Klass
Formalism In Contract Exposition, Gregory Klass
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Formalism in contract law has had many defenders and many critics. What lawmakers need, however, is an account of when formalist approaches work and when they do not. This article addresses that need by providing general theory of the rules of contract interpretation and construction and identifying several ways those rules can be more or less formalist. The theory draws from legal philosophy, the philosophy of language, economic contracts scholarship, and caselaw.
The result is a distinction between two forms of formalism in contract law. Formalities effect legal change by virtue of their form alone, thereby obviating interpretation. Examples from …
Convergence By Design: Who Contracts And The Plural Purposes Of Contract Law, Gregory Klass
Convergence By Design: Who Contracts And The Plural Purposes Of Contract Law, Gregory Klass
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
A theory is robustly pluralist if it maintains that law is justified by multiple independent nonordered principles. Some have argued that robustly pluralist theories are deficient because they can provide no practical guidance when those principles conflict. The objection is misplaced when applied to pluralist theories of contract law.
This article demonstrates the possibility of a robustly pluralist and practically relevant theory of contract law by modeling a multipurpose law of contract. Five simple models are constructed to illustrate several purposes a contract law might serve, depending on preferences of the populace (self-interested utility maximizers, a preference for sharing, a …
What Might Contract Theory Be, Gregory Klass
What Might Contract Theory Be, Gregory Klass
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Few contract theories begin with so comprehensive a discussion of method as does Stephen Smith’s book, Contract Theory. In the first chapter, “What Is Contract Theory,” Smith describes an interpretive approach guided by four goals: fit with the existing law, internal coherence, moral attractiveness, and transparency to legal actors.
This chapter, to appear in the forthcoming Understanding Private Law: Essays in Honour of Stephen A. Smith, does a deep dive into Smith’s description and defense of those goals. Smith pictures the contract theorist as an observer standing outside legal practice, interpreting the law but not participating in it. …
Can Contract Emancipate? Contract Theory And The Law Of Work, Hanoch Dagan, Michael A. Heller
Can Contract Emancipate? Contract Theory And The Law Of Work, Hanoch Dagan, Michael A. Heller
Faculty Scholarship
Contract and employment law have grown apart. Long ago, each side gave up on the other. In this Article, we re-unite them to the betterment of both. In brief, we demonstrate the emancipatory potential of contract for the law of work.
Today, the dominant contract theories assume a widget transaction between substantively equal parties. If this were an accurate description of what contract is, then contract law would be right to expel workers. Worker protections would indeed be better regulated by – and relegated to – employment and labor law. But contract law is not what contract theorists claim. Neither …