This article shows how in-house lawyers' role has evolved to address the high cost of legal services and the traditional information asymmetry between lawyers and clients. The first stage of this evolution involved the expanding role of in-house counsel from intermediary between corporate...

Two Blue Ribbon business advisory panels have recently proposed arbitration to remedy the problems endemic to shareholder class action litigation. Critics have long assailed shareholder litigation as harmful to firms without conferring a corresponding benefit upon shareholders or the public....

"Legal valuation" - the resolution of disputes over the value of legal entitlements - is an inevitable aspect of any legal system. Across time and place and doctrinal boundaries, the problem is the same: each side seeks to have a self-servingly high or low figure assigned to the entitlement in...

Individual investors victimized by securities fraud have no voice in directing class actions brought on their behalf once institutional investors obtain lead plaintiff appointments. The same holds for state-level transactional class actions claiming breaches of fiduciary duty by boards of...

In the aftermath of the global economic collapse of 2008, policymakers from around the world have been considering regulations designed to reduce the risk of future economic turmoil. Their focus has been on powers and procedures designed to reduce systemic risk and to help ensure financial...

Diverse measures are used as proxies for judicial ability, ranging from the college and law school a judge attended to the rate at which her decisions are cited by other judges. Yet, there has been little serious examination of which of these ability measures is better or worse at predicting the...

The proposals to limit auditor liability, principally aimed at protecting the Big-4 from the risk of a catastrophic exposure to damages, are grounded on the assumption that auditors are generally over-deterred. The 2008 EC Commission Recommendation on auditor liability relies heavily on this...

This article discusses the extent to which rule of law principles have been embraced within the language, principles and practice of China’s Company Law. The paper discusses different understandings of the rule of law that are to be found in the wider literature. Whilst China has affirmed the...

In their book, The Law Market, Erin O'Hara and Larry Ribstein show that states increasingly act as hawkers of legal rules in a market for law where people and firms often can shop for those regimes that they find most desirable. This market helps deal with a world in which increasing mobility...

Stoneridge is the latest in a series of recent Supreme Court decisions restricting securities class actions. It is also the latest in a series of Court decisions (Affiliated Ute, Basic, and Central Bank) using the reliance element of the Rule 10b-5 cause of action to expand or restrict the reach...