Save the Date International Conference on Contracts 2015

The Tenth International Conference on Contracts will be held February 27-28th, 2015 at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  The Chair is Professor Keith Rowley.  More will be coming soon on this, but going to Vegas for the Conference has been a big hit in the past (UNLV has hosted before).

- JSM

Seventh International Contracts Conference Kicks Off at Thomas Jefferson in San Diego

The conference starts on Friday, March 2d. There is a great lineup of speakers and stimulating
topics.

Of especial note, our esteemed colleague Professor Melvin Eisenburg will be the recipient of the 7th ICC Life Achievement Award. Professor Omri Ben Shahar will also receive an award for the best contracts paper published in 2011.

With the weatherman promising nice weather (sunny with highs of 63 and 68 on Friday and Saturday) and great food in store, it doesn't get much better than this. If an interlude in the sun with great food for scholars and practitioners of contracts law to mingle while doing what they love most: taking about contracts sounds good to you, well, its not too late to register - go to http://www.tjsl.edu/conferences/international-conference-on-contracts.

Sorry to say that I cannot attend this year, but sounds like fun!

- JSM

Thomas Jefferson to Host International Conference on Contracts

Happy to report that Thomas Jefferson School of Law in sunny San Diego will be hosting the International Conference on Contracts this year on March 2-3. This is always a good conference4 with a variety of topics and presenters on both scholarly and teaching projects. For more information, click here.

- JSM

Richard Nash Delivers Plenary Address

"Books are social glue."

Today's CALI Conference day began with Richard Nash delivering the Plenary address to the conference participants. For those not familiar with him, Nash is a publisher, having sold the successful Softskull Press to Counterpoint and since then beginning Cursor which promises to help independent publishers. Nash's view of the future of publishing involves a look to the past and the history of the development of printing.

Nash is dedicated to bring printing and publishing to all writers so that they can, in turn, connect with readers. More writers more readers, more readers more writers. . . . Basically, there should be wide access to publishing resources. Nash believes that we've arrived at a time when supply of writing is available widely. The next hurdle will be tackling issues surrounding matching the writings with those who need them. Classic demand issues in the marketplace. Accordingly, the way in which we connect people through the web and otherwise leads to a developing preeminence of readers.

Nash's theory is dependent on recongition that more than content, culture matters. Now that individuals can self publish and distribute materials on the internet through unlimited means of sharing, the emphasis for publishers should be on the connections. The gatekeeping power of publishers controlling the content that arrives at the marketplace is diminished. Material will arrive at the market. The question is how will we find it?

Interesting thoughts on the future of publishing. Surely, it is equally applicable to legal education where, for instance, CALI has Legal Education Commons where faculty can post all types of various educational materials in differing presentations and new E-Langdell e-text project which aims to make a limited number of law textbooks available to students for free. Access is surely present. Nash commented that textbooks help students harness information in a tangible format between class sessions when they need to engage in independent learning. The big question is how that format will change now that alternative materials are available in a widespread manner. The most important facet is simply that they read, not the format.

Nash recommends for summer reading . . . Lynne Tilman's Someday This Will Be Funny. Enjoy.

- JSM

CALI Conference in Milwaukee

For the next couple of days I am at the CALI Conference in Milwaukee. The theme of the conference is "Unbound," focusing on e-books, social media and electronic resources. I will be presenting tomorrow on Cali's E-Langdell program that is starting to make available electronic casebooks to law students that are free and available in a number of formats.

The first session is a mini-session with a group of speakers highlighting for 5-10 minutes the presentation they will make later. While many of us use social media in both personal and professional capacities, a session I will attend later was Rich Cure's pitch for student's use of social media to enrich their own learning when the classroom component fails to deliver or needs supplementation.

More later for sure. Hopefully, our students are using Facebook, Twitter and Youtube to enrich their commercial law studies, but I wonder . . .

- JSM

Call for Papers: Fringe Economy

Call for Papers

Regulation in the Fringe Economy

The symposium Regulation in the Fringe Economy represents the most significant attempt to date by legal scholars to address the vexing legal and social issues created by lenders on the fringes of the economy who offer payday, auto title, for-profit college, and refund anticipation loans. A complete list of confirmed participants and their paper topics is available at the conference website: http://law.wlu.edu/fringe.

The Frances Lewis Law Center and the Washington and Lee Law Review are delighted to sponsor this conference which will take place on November 11, 2011 at the Washington and Lee University School of Law in Lexington, Virginia. The Washington and Lee Law Review will publish a symposium issue featuring the conference papers in 2012.

The sponsors’ goal is to encourage and recognize excellent legal scholarship in this area. To advance their goal, the sponsors invite lawyers, judges, and scholars to submit papers on regulation in the fringe economy. Papers on related high-risk consumer financial products are also encouraged. An author should submit his or her manuscript in an exclusive submission on or before August 15, 2011. A submission should be no longer than 50 pages or 15,000 words. A limited number of submissions will be accepted. Authors will be notified of the acceptance of their paper and participation in the symposium no later than August 20, 2011.

Selected authors will present their papers at the November 11 conference. All participants are asked to provide their own travel expenses. Papers specifying the conference may be mailed to the Washington and Lee Law Review or sent electronically to lawreview@wlu.edu. The Law Review Articles Editors and Washington and Lee University School of Law Professor Margaret Howard will review the papers.

Even if you are not able to submit a paper, the sponsors invite you to attend the conference. There will be no charge for attending. The Frances Lewis Law Center is a licensed Virginia Continuing Legal Education provider which will supply Virginia CLE credit for those attending.

Mallory A. Sullivan
Symposium Editor, Washington and Lee Law Review

Christine M. Shepard
Editor in Chief, Washington and Lee Law Review

-JSM

Does Unconscionability Theory Lead to Greater Economic Problems?

Today is the second day of the International Contracts Conference hosted this year by Stetson University College of Law. Professor Xi George Zhou of the University of Sheffield presented his paper, An Economic Perspective on Legal Remedies for Unconscionable Contracts, where he argues that there are disincentives to trade created by unconscionability doctrine, precaution problems and potential abuse of rights. His paper asks whether a higher deterrence model leads to greater economic problems. He proposes that creating an effective remedy for unconscionable behavior may require a legal remedy that is lower, as a high sanction may result in less economic transactions due to precautions employed by traders. Thus, it is impossible to eliminate bad behavior through deterrence alone. In order to use any legal mechanism we need to focus on the effectiveness of the tactic. There are risks to all deterrence models.

Professor Zhou also presented a call for papers for the Society of Legal Scholars Conference September 5-8. This year's topic is Law in Politics, Politics in Law. All papers on any aspect of contract, commercial and consumer law are welcome, whether on topic or not. Paper proposals are due by March 4, 2011 to Professor Zhou at qi.zhou@sheffield.ac.uk.

-jsm

AALS Section on Financial Institutions and Consumer Financial Services

The section program at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools in San Francisco on January 7 this year focused on the "post-crisis" landscape. The Call for Papers panel featured papers by William Birdthistle, Jim Hawkins, Adam Levitin, Alan White and Sarah Woo.

One of my favorites on this panel was James Hawkins' (University of Houston) paper on Regulating the Fringe: Reexamining the Link Between Fringe Banking and Financial Distress forthcoming in the Indiana Law Review. Basically Jim argues that products like payday loans, pawn loans, and rent-to-own leases— might not cause as much financial distress to consumers because of the finality involved in these transactions and the amount. As such, perhaps we might reconsider whether regulators should lump these types of transactions with others. At the heart of this is what constitutes financial distress. While I am not a fan of the fringe banking products, Jim's argument that they might require differing treatment in terms of regulation is worth serious consideration. For my part, I part with him in some of the ideas regarding monetary valuation. I remain unconvinced that one person's financial distress is the same as another's due to relative economic means as a whole. For instance, a person of very limited means may experience serious financial distress when their $750 auto is repossessed and they cannot get to work, then loose their employment, etc. While the event of losing the car may have a finality in and of itself that does not continue to plague the consumer, even smaller dollar transactions can have great impact on the lives of many consumers. That aside, the finality of the transaction is worth further thought when considering regulation of fringe banking products, as is the differing impact of the size of these transactions.

- JSM

6th Annual International Conference on Contracts

6th Annual International Conference on Contracts. Stetson University College of Law and Texas Wesleyan School of Law are co-sponsoring the 6th Annual International Conference on Contracts, February 18–19, 2011, at Stetson’s beautiful campus in Gulfport, Florida. Similar to prior contracts conferences held at UNLV, McGeorge, South Texas, Texas Wesleyan, and Gloucester, England, this conference is designed to afford scholars and teach­ers at all experience levels an opportunity to present and discuss recently published papers, forthcoming papers, works in progress, and pedagogical innovations, and to network with colleagues from the United States and around the globe. Stewart Macaulay, Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, is the keynote speaker. A few places remain available for panelists and moderators at the conference. Proposals for presentations will be considered on a rolling basis until spaces are filled, but no later than January 15. For more information or to register online, visit www.law.stetson.edu/conferences/contracts. Contact person: Associate Dean James Fox fox@law.stetson.edu.

- JSM

Spring Contracts Conference - Reminder

Mark your calendar: The annual spring conference on contract law will be held on February 18 and 19, 2011, at the lovely Stetson Law School. Save the Date!

- JSM