2011–12 SYMPOSIUM: THE NEW PRIVATE LAW
"Private law” encompasses traditional common law subjects such as Property, Contracts, and Torts, adjacent subjects including intellectual property, and topics that are now mostly neglected in U.S. law schools, including restitution, equity, and remedies. Although scholars in commonwealth and civilian jurisdictions generally regard private law as a useful category, here it is barely recognized. Since the rise of Legal Realism and the modern administrative state, the standard academic supposition in this country has been that “all law is public law,” and that any use of the category of private law is unhelpful or pernicious. “The New Private Law” argues that while the Realist critique of private law has been richly generative, it has also caused us to lose sight of entire domains of law and legal study. Nor is the problem merely academic. As judges and practitioners have lost their feel for private law, the quality of opinions and legal representation has suffered, sometimes prominently so. This symposium aims to reconsider the turn away from private law. In particular, its papers aim to demonstrate concretely the value of taking as worthy objects of inquiry private law’s categories and concepts. The goal is to offer a new set of perspectives on time-honored territory by harnessing interdisciplinary analysis in aid of interpretive reconstruction rather than skeptical deconstruction.
On Friday, October 21, 2011 the Harvard Law Review will hold a symposium conference at Harvard Law School in which scholars will present drafts of papers on “The New Private Law.” Other scholars will respond to and comment on the ideas of “The New Private Law” from a variety of methodological perspectives. The May 2012 issue of the Harvard Law Review will feature the final versions of the papers presented at the conference. Contemporaneously with the release of the print issue, the Harvard Law Review Forum will publish response essays online by the commentators at the symposium conference.
Harvard Law School, Austin North
Friday, October 21, 2011
Breakfast: 8:30 – 9:15
Introduction: 9:15 – 9:30
Opening remarks by Dean Martha Minow, Jeremy Newman, and Faculty Chair John GoldbergPanel #1 – Property Law: 9:30 – 10:20
Presenter: Henry Smith, Harvard Law SchoolModerator: Carol Rose, James E. Rogers College of Law – University of Arizona (Professor Emeritus, Yale Law School)
Commentator: Eric Claeys, George Mason University School of Law
Commentator: Thomas Merrill, Columbia Law School
Panel #2 – Remedies: 10:20 – 11:10
Presenter: Stephen Smith, McGill University Faculty of Law
Moderator: Daniel Markovits, Yale Law School
Commentator: Richard Brooks, Yale Law School
Commentator: Emily Sherwin, Cornell Law School
Break: 11:10 – 11:20
Panel #3 – Copyright: 11:20 – 12:10
Presenter: Shyam Balganesh, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Moderator: Wendy Gordon, Boston University School of Law
Commentator: Abraham Drassinower, University of Toronto Faculty of Law
Commentator: Richard Epstein, New York University School of Law
Panel #4 – Tort Law: 12:10 – 1:00
Presenter: Benjamin Zipursky, Fordham University School of Law
Moderator: Arthur Ripstein, University of Toronto Faculty of Law
Commentator: Keith Hylton, Boston University School of Law (Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School)
Commentator: John Oberdiek, Rutgers School of Law – Camden
Lunch: 1:00 – 2:00
Roundtable Discussion: 2:00 – 3:30
Led by John Goldberg, Harvard Law School
