Foundations of Private Law

The Project on the Foundations of Private Law is an interdisciplinary research program at Harvard Law School dedicated to the academic investigation of private law. "Private law" embraces the traditionally common law subjects (property, contracts, and torts), as well as related subjects that are more heavily statutory, such as intellectual property and commercial law. It also includes areas of study that are today less familiar to students and scholars, including unjust enrichment, restitution, equity, and remedies. The Project aims to further study of these areas, their relationships to and distinctiveness from each other, and questions about the status and nature of private law as a whole. The Project draws on multiple disciplines outside law, including economics, history, cognitive science, and philosophy. It also encourages comparative work, especially involving Commonwealth and civil-law systems with explicit notions of private law.

Faculty:

Henry E. Smith, Director

John C.P. Goldberg

The Project on the Foundations of Private Law Student Fellowship Program (2012-2013)
Application Information
Deadline Friday, May 25, 2012

Private Law Courses 2012-13

Causes and Consequences in Private Law

Commercial Law: Secured Transactions

Comparative Law: Foundations of Western Legal Thought

Contracts and Justice

Contracts for LLMs

Drug Product Liability Litigation

Incentives in Intellectual Property

Insurance Law

Intellectual Property Law

Intellectual Property Law: Advanced

International Business Transactions

International Commercial Arbitration

Jewish Law in the Making: Formalism and Realism in Jewish Legal Tradition

Mass Tort and Complex Litigation

Natural Law and Positive Law

Readings in English Legal History

Real Estate Law

Reason in Law: Challenges of Skepticism and Paradox

Sports Law: Advanced Contract Drafting

The Genealogy of Continental Philosophy and Law

Trademark

Trusts and Estates

Private law also includes courses in areas such as corporate law which are not listed individually here.

Courses and Presentations 2012-2013:

Spring 2013:

Private Law: Workshop
Professors John C.P. Goldberg and Henry E. Smith
Harvard Law School
Cambridge, MA 02138

Previous Private Law: Workshop Presenters and Papers

Spring 2012

Monday, January 30, 2011
Steven Shavell, Harvard Law School
"A Fundamental Cost Advantage of the Negligence Rule over Regulation"

Monday, February 6, 2012
Anita Bernstein, Brooklyn Law School
"Real Remedies for Virtual Injuries"

Monday, February 13, 2012
Daniel Markovits, Yale Law School
"Market Solidarity 1: Price as Commensuration, Contract as Integration"

Monday, February 20, 2012
Ward Farnsworth, Boston University
"Restatement Third, Torts: Liability for Economic Harm"

Monday, March 5, 2012
Andrew Gold, DePaul University College of Law
"A Theory of Redressive Justice"

Monday, March 19, 2012
Gillian K. Hadfield, University of Southern California School of Law
"Law without Coercion: Examining the Role of Law in Coordinating Collective Punishment"

Monday, March 26, 2012
James Goudkamp, Balliol College, Oxford and University of Oxford
"A Taxonomy of Tort Defences"

Monday, April 2, 2012
Duncan Kennedy, Harvard Law School
"A Transnational Genealogy of Proportionality in Private Law"

Monday, April 9, 2012
Martha Chamallas, Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University
"The Measure of Injury" (Introduction and Chapter 5)

Spring 2011

Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Kenneth Simons, Boston University School of Law
“Statistical Knowledge Deconstructed”

Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Richard Brooks, Yale Law School
"The Efficient Performance Hypothesis"
"Participation Interests"

Tuesday, March 8, 2011
James Penner, Faculty of Laws, University College London
"Promises, Agreements and the Structure of Contract Law Doctrine"
"Promising, Intimate Relationships and Conventionalism"
"Voluntary Obligations and the Scope of the Law of Contract"

Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Charles Fried, Harvard Law School
"Contract As Promise"

Monday, March 28, 2011
Seana Shiffrin, UCLA School of Law and Philosophy
"The Divergence of Contract and Promise"
"Inducing Moral Deliberation: On the Occasional Virtues of Fog"

Tuesday, April 5, 2011
"Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co."
"Public Nuisance as Mass Liability Tort" (excerpt)

Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Thomas Merrill, Columbia Law School
"Is Public Nuisance a Tort?"

Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Brian Lee, Brooklyn Law School
"The Idiosyncratic Premium in Eminent Domain"

Watch for updates...

For information on the associated Student Fellowship Program, please click here (PDF).

Research Programs

Last modified: April 24, 2012