Gregory Klass, ‘What Might Contract Theory Be?’, in Understanding Private Law: Essays in Honour of Stephen A Smith 181 (Evan Fox-Decent, John CP Goldberg and Lionel Smith eds 2025). Gregory Klass’s article, ‘What Might Contract Theory Be?’, was published in the collection, Understanding Private Law, a volume honoring Stephen A Smith, the eminent Contract and Private Law Theory scholar who passed away far too young (shortly before this volume’s publication). Klass’s article focuses on an influential discussion in the first chapter of Smith’s influential work, Contract Theory. In that chapter, Smith sets out the criteria he believes should be used to evaluate theories of contract law. In particular, Smith offers four criteria: fit, coherence, morality, and transparency. In Klass’s discussion, he asks good, probing questions of each of Smith’s categories and the way that Smith applies them (pp 183-89). However, Klass’s most important challenge may be the following, general one: should a theorist of contract law (or other doctrinal areas of law) be essentially an outside spectator to the practice, or essentially a (kind of) participant in the practice? … (more)
[Brian Bix, JOTWELL, 2 February 2026]
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