Monthly Archives: January, 2026
Duncan Kennedy, ‘Continental and American Critical Legal Studies: A Close Reading of an Article by Giovanni Marini’
ABSTRACT This article, intended as a contribution to a tribute issue of the Revista critica del diritto privato, offers a detailed reading of an early article by Giovanni Marini. Marini provides a richly historicized account of the similar and different trajectories of Continental European and American critical legal studies as they stood in the early […]
Benjamin Porat, ‘Personal Injury Assessment: Human Nature and Social Order’
ABSTRACT The evaluation of bodily injury is one of the most complicated areas of tort law. How should the value of a human limb be determined, and what are the relevant parameters for doing so? Rules for appraising personal injury invite a review of fundamental value-based questions about human nature and social structure. For example, […]
Lev Goukassian, ‘TML Smart Contracts: Automating Ethics and Accountability on the Blockchain’
ABSTRACT This whitepaper details the economic and operational enforcement layer of the Ternary Moral Logic (TML) framework. Addressing the ‘Implementation Gap’ in AI ethics, this paper demonstrates how to replace voluntary compliance with automated, smart-contract-based enforcement mechanisms. The analysis defines the economic game theory behind: The Penalty Enforcement Contract: A deterministic mechanism for executing financial […]
Goodman and Laser, ‘Ten Tips for Legal Empiricists’
ABSTRACT This essay offers practical tips from leading legal empirical researchers to assist new scholars who are entering the field. Topics include developing meaningful research questions, designing robust survey methodologies, balancing qualitative and quantitative approaches, ensuring data transparency, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and navigating ethical considerations in empirical work. Drawing from their own unique challenges and […]
Lamia Akhter and others, ‘Battle of Forms under the Contract Act, 1872’
ABSTRACT The battle of forms arises in commercial contracting when merchants exchange conflicting standard (‘boilerplate’) terms yet proceed to perform as if a contract exists. Under classic contract doctrine, acceptance must ‘mirror’ the offer, so any variance creates a counter-offer. This gives rise to competing doctrines: the Mirror Image Rule, the Last-Shot Rule, and the […]
Amy Schmitz, ‘Promise and Pitfalls of AI In Mass Arbitration’
ABSTRACT Mass arbitration has emerged as a strategic response to arbitration clauses that preclude class actions, allowing large numbers of claimants to bring individual arbitration demands against companies for similar grievances. Unlike class actions where a lead claimant represents others, mass arbitration requires each claimant’s active participation in separate proceedings, creating significant administrative burdens and […]
Wayne Barnes, ‘CISG (2025 Survey)’
ABSTRACT This survey article discusses cases during the prior year, which are decided based on one or more provisions of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). The CISG is a United Nations treaty that provides a uniform international sales law. It was adopted in Vienna in 1980 and […]
Ho and Mitchell, ‘Knowing Receipt, Equitable Proprietary Rights, and Duties of Due Administration’
ABSTRACT In Byers v Saudi National Bank (2023) the Supreme Court held that a claimant in knowing receipt must have had a ‘continuing equitable proprietary interest’ in the property received by the defendant. Such an interest is commonly understood to include a right to benefit from the property, yet successful claims in knowing receipt have […]
Arnow-Richman and Verkerke, ‘Defusing Disclaimers’
ABSTRACT This Article tackles the ubiquitous problem of employer-drafted ‘disclaimers’. Disclaimers are standardized provisions, found in a variety of human resources documents, that confirm employees’ at-will status. They typically preserve employers’ right to change the terms of employment at any time, sometimes without advance notice. The most careful disclaimers also renounce the legal significance of […]
David Matta, ‘Private Property without Privacy: Private Information and the Silent Transformation of Ownership in the Information Age’
ABSTRACT Classical political economy treats private property as foundational to economic coordination and individual autonomy. This paper argues that while private property remains formally intact, it has been substantively hollowed out by the erosion of privacy in the information age. The central claim is that private information – defined as the owner’s privileged epistemic access […]