The prudent investor rule, now enacted in every state, is the centerpiece of trust investment law. In accordance with modern portfolio theory, the rule directs a trustee to implement an overall investment strategy having risk and return objectives reasonably suited to the trust. This article,...

In this chapter, prepared for The Oxford Handbook of New Private Law, we identify the principal ways in which the common law trust has been used as an instrument of private ordering in American practice. We argue that in both law and function, contemporary American trust law has divided into...

This chapter restates the economic theory of fiduciary law, making several fresh contributions. First, it elaborates on earlier work by clarifying the agency problem that is at the core of all fiduciary relationships. In consequence of this common economic structure, there is a common doctrinal...

This is a transcript of a roundtable discussion between Robert Pritzker of The Marmon Group, Inc., Vice-Chancellor Jack Jacobs of the Delaware Court of Chancery, and Law Professors William Carney, Richard Painter, and Robert Sitkoff, with Professor Carney serving as moderator. The general topic...

This chapter, prepared for the 2021 Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, examines the law and economics of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing by a trustee. Trustees of pensions, charities, and personal trusts invest tens of trillions of dollars of other people’s...

This chapter summarizes the four areas of practical innovation of the Uniform Directed Trust Act (UDTA). The first is a careful allocation of fiduciary duties. The UDTA’s basic approach is to take the law of trusteeship and attach it to whichever person holds the powers of trusteeship, even if...

Trustees of pensions, charities, and personal trusts invest tens of trillions of dollars of other people's money subject to a sacred trust known in the law as fiduciary duty. Recently, these trustees have come under increasing pressure to use environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors...

This article calls attention to the Department of Labor's imposition of the “prudent investor rule” on financial advisers to retirement savers. The article also canvasses the customary role of an investment policy statement in promoting compliance with the prudent investor rule by...