Justice In Transactions

“One of the most important contributions to the field of contract theory—if not the most important—in the past 25 years.” —Stephen A. Smith, McGill University Can we account for contract law on a moral basis that is acceptable from the standpoint of liberal justice? To answer this question, Peter Benson develops a theory of contract that is completely independent of—and arguably superior to—long-dominant views, which take contract law to be justified on the basis of economics or promissory morality. Through a detailed analysis of contract principles and doctrines, Benson brings out the specific normative conception underpinning the whole of contract law. Contract, he argues, is best explained as a transfer of rights, which is complete at the moment of agreement and is governed by a definite conception of justice—justice in transactions. Benson’s analysis provides what John Rawls called a public basis of justification, which is as essential to the liberal legitimacy of contract as to any other form of coercive law. The argument of Justice in Transactions is expressly complementary to Rawls’s, presenting an original justification designed specifically for transactions, as distinguished from the background institutions to which Rawls’s own theory applies. The result is a field-defining work offering a comprehensive theory of contract law. Benson shows that contract law is both justified in its own right and fully congruent with other domains—moral, economic, and political—of liberal society.

Posner uses economic analysis to probe justice and efficiency, primitive law, privacy, and the constitutional regulation of racial discrimination.

In 1968, ten thousand students marched in protest over the terrible conditions prevalent in the high schools of East Los Angeles, the largest Mexican community in the United States. Chanting Chicano Power, the young insurgents not only demanded change but heralded a new racial politics. Frustrated with the previous generation's efforts to win equal treatment by portraying themselves as racially white, the Chicano protesters demanded justice as proud members of a brown race. The legacy of this fundamental shift continues to this day. Ian Haney Lopez tells the compelling story of the Chicano movement in Los Angeles by following two criminal trials, including one arising from the student walkouts. He demonstrates how racial prejudice led to police brutality and judicial discrimination that in turn spurred Chicano militancy. He also shows that legal violence helped to convince Chicano activists that they were nonwhite, thereby encouraging their use of racial ideas to redefine their aspirations, culture, and selves. In a groundbreaking advance that further connects legal racism and racial politics, Haney Lopez describes how race functions as common sense, a set of ideas that we take for granted in our daily lives. This racial common sense, Haney Lopez argues, largely explains why racism and racial affiliation persist today. By tracing the fluid position of Mexican Americans on the divide between white and nonwhite, describing the role of legal violence in producing racial identities, and detailing the commonsense nature of race, Haney Lopez offers a much needed, potentially liberating way to rethink race in the United States.

For proven guidance and techniques for handling a commercial real estate deal, this practical guide will help you negotiate and close the deal. The authors cover each step of a real estate transaction in the order in which it generally arises, and offers pertinent advice, practice comments, and sample forms throughout. Because much of the real estate lawyer's practice revolves around transactional documents, the book's chapters emphasize the drafting, negotiation, and revision needed to get a deal closed. Written by a law professor and two real estate practitioners, this book offers a useful combination of text overview and practice pointers. It helps lawyers with less experience navigate through the maze of steps involved in a real estate transaction. At the same time, it serves as a valuable reference for more seasoned attorneys as well as those whose practice is concentrated in other areas of the law. Downloadable forms are available online.

In this book, the author argues that to achieve a fair global economy, there must be compensation of people harmed by their exposure to the global economy, but also equal division of the "gains of trade" across societies.

The core of this law school casebook is an extensive set of hypothetical problems designed to force students to come to grips with Article 9 provisions directly, assuming that the student has just been hired as a junior in-house counsel for a mythical bank holding company. It then takes the student through the series of problems generated by various lending subsidiaries. The tone is light, with recurring characters, and footnotes which include the necessary Code citations and case citations to supplement the included materials. This book is intended for teachers who want an in depth treatment of Article 9, believe Article 9 need not be drudgery either for students or instructors, and have a sense of humor. The new edition adds some new problems and text and includes a substantial number of recent cases and secondary sources to the footnotes that will help students both answer the problems and extend their understanding of the concepts being covered.

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive investigation of gender and the law in the United States. Deborah Rhode describes legal developments over the last two centuries against a background of historical and sociological changes in women's activities and attitudes toward these new developments. She shows the way cultural perceptions of gender influence and in turn are influenced by legal constructions, and what this complicated interaction implies about the possibility-or impossibility-of using law as a tool of social change. Table of Contents: Introduction Part One: Historical Frameworks 1. Natural Rights and Natural Roles Domesticity as Destiny The Emergence of a Feminist Movement Nineteenth-Century Legal Ideology: Separate and Unequal 2. The Fragmentation of Feminism and the Legalization of Difference The Postsuffrage Women's Movement Separate Spheres and Legal Thought Part Two: Equal Rights in Retrospect 3. Feminist Challenges and Legal Responses The Growth of the Contemporary Women's Movement Governmental Rejoinders Liberalism and Liberation 4. The Equal Rights Campaign Instrumental Claims Symbolic Underpinnings Political Strategies Requiems and Revivals 5. The Evolution of Discrimination Doctrine The Search for Standards Separate Spheres Revisited: Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications Definitions of Difference Part Three: Contemporary Issues 6. False Dichotomies Benign and Invidious Discrimination in Welfare Policy: Elderly Women and Social Security Special Treatment or Equal Treatment: Pregnancy, Maternal, and Caretaking Policy Public and Private: Social Welfare and Childcare Policies 7. Competing Perspectives on Family Policy Form and Substance: The Marital-Nonmarital Divide Lesbian-Gay Rights and Social Wrongs Equality and Equity in Divorce Reform Text and Subtext in Custody Adjudication 8. Equality in Form and Equality in Fact: Women and Work Occupational Inequality The Legal Response Employment Policy and Structural Change 9. Reproductive Freedom The Historical Legacy Abortion Adolescent Pregnancy Reproductive Technology 10. Sex and Violence Sexual Harassment Domestic Violence Rape Prostitution Pornography 11. Association and Assimilation Private Clubs and Public Values Education Athletics Different But Equal Conclusion: Principles and Priorities Differences over Difference Differences over Sameness Theory about Theory Legal Frameworks Notes Index Reviews of this book: Rhode's work is impressive in its scholarship and its range...a compelling account. --Josephine Shaw, International and Comparative Law Quarterly Reviews of this book: The definitive treatment of the American legal system's struggle to deal with issues pertaining to gender...The strength of Rhode's analysis, however, is not its historical aspect but its probing view of modern gender issues...The focus is always on the deeper forces that have led to gender disadvantage...There is much to be learned from reading this volume. --Victoria J. Dodd, Bimonthly Review of Law Books Reviews of this book: A comprensive journey through the history of law and gender...The book is important in a number of ways...[It] paints in stark, irrefutable colors the irrational prejudices that have served to justify legal determinations limiting equality...[I]t has the audacity to ask the law to turn on itself and work more justly. --Sheila James Kuehl, California Lawyer Reviews of this book: Encyclopedic.. . Thorough, carefully nuanced ... [Rhode] gives all sides their fair due on every issue she takes up... A valuable resource for many years to come. --Susan 0kin, Law and Social Inquiry Justice and Gender breaks the impasse created by legal and theoretical debates over 'sameness' and 'difference.' Deborah Rhode's brilliant analysis of gender and the law in the United States from the nineteenth century to the present argues persuasively for theories rooted in careful contextual analysis and for a legal emphasis on gender disadvantage rather than gender difference. This book offers a new vantage point from which to think about the role of law in building a just society. --Sarah M. Evans, University of Minnesota

Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Should we allow corporations to pay for the right to pollute the atmosphere? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars? Auctioning admission to elite universities? Selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay? In What Money Can't Buy, Michael J. Sandel takes on one of the biggest ethical questions of our time: Is there something wrong with a world in which everything is for sale? If so, how can we prevent market values from reaching into spheres of life where they don't belong? What are the moral limits of markets? In recent decades, market values have crowded out nonmarket norms in almost every aspect of life—medicine, education, government, law, art, sports, even family life and personal relations. Without quite realizing it, Sandel argues, we have drifted from having a market economy to being a market society. Is this where we want to be?In his New York Times bestseller Justice, Sandel showed himself to be a master at illuminating, with clarity and verve, the hard moral questions we confront in our everyday lives. Now, in What Money Can't Buy, he provokes an essential discussion that we, in our market-driven age, need to have: What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society—and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets don't honor and that money can't buy?

In 'Law's Empire', Ronald Dworkin relects on the nature of the law, its authority, its application in democracy, the prominent role of interpretation in judgement and the relations of lawmakers and lawgivers in the community.

Legal thinkers typically justify contract law on the basis of economics or promissory morality. But Peter Benson takes another approach. He argues that contract is best explained as a transfer of rights governed by a conception of justice. The result is a comprehensive theory of contract law congruent with Rawlsian liberalism.