This essay reviews Margaret Jane Radin's Boilerplate: The Fine Print, Vanishing Rights, And The Rule Of Law (Princeton Press, 2013). It responds to two of the book's principal complaints against boilerplate consumer contracts: that they modify people's rights without true agreement to, or even...

This article offers a new mechanism of law enforcement, combining sanctions and rewards into a scheme of “reversible rewards.” A law enforcer sets up a pre-committed fund and offers it as reward to another party to refrain from violation. If the violator turns down the reward, the enforcer...

How can a prosecutor, who has only limited resources, credibly threaten so many defendants with costly and risky trials and extract plea bargains involving harsh sentences? Had defendants refused to settle, many of them would not have been charged or would have escaped with lenient sanctions....

This article examines the stickiness of default rules and boilerplate terms in contract law. It argues that parties who choose to deviate from well entrenched defaults may face hurdles beyond the direct transaction costs of drafting. The mere deviation from standard terms by a proposing party...

Exit from contract is one of the most powerful consumer protection devices, freeing consumers from bad deals and keeping businesses honest. Yet consumers often choose transactions with lock-in provisions, trading off exit rights for other perks. This article examines the costs and benefits of...

Legal rights may erode as a result of past, uncontested, breach. In light of ongoing violations, the rightholder's lackluster enforcement may result in the loss of the entitlement. The doctrines of course of performance in contract law and adverse possession in property law are prominent...

The most fundamental feature of negligence law is the "reasonable person" standard. This feature bases negligence law on a strictly objective foundation: it requires people to behave in the prudent way that, as Holmes explained, the ordinary, typical member of their community observes. In this...

This Article explores the role of insurance as substitute for direct regulation of risks posed by severe weather. In pricing the risk of human activity along the predicted path of storms, insurance can provide incentives for efficient location decisions as well as for cost-justified mitigation...

Mandatory rules provide people minimum contractual protection they might otherwise fail to secure. Because people vary in the degree of protection they need and the cost of protection they can afford, one-size-fits-all rules are too weak for some and too strong for others. This article examines...

What would happen if cost benefit analysis were applied to disclosure regulations? Mandated disclosure has largely escaped rigorous CBA because it looks so plausible: Disclosure seems rich in benefits and low in cost. This article makes two arguments. First, it previews the thesis in our book...