Liberty Law Talk

This Liberty Law Talk is with Ted Frank on reforming class action litigation and, in particular, the settlements plaintiffs receive under the current system. Frank, the founder of the Center for Class Action Fairness, argues that class-action suits contribute little to plaintiffs and substantially benefit only their lawyers. Monitoring and agency problems reign because most plaintiffs lack the incentives to ensure that the class's lawyers are actually representing their interests and not the lawyer's monetary desires. We also discuss the turn to arbitration by companies as an exit from class actions and Frank's work that contests egregious attorney fee awards…Read More

This Liberty Law Talk is with Ted Frank on reforming class action litigation and, in particular, the settlements plaintiffs receive under the current system. Frank, the founder of the Center for Class Action Fairness, argues that class-action suits contribute little to plaintiffs and substantially benefit only their lawyers. Monitoring and agency problems reign because most plaintiffs lack the incentives to ensure that the class's lawyers are actually representing their interests and not the lawyer's monetary desires. We also discuss the turn to arbitration by companies as an exit from class actions and Frank's work that contests egregious attorney fee awards…Read More

This next Liberty Law Talk is with John McGinnis, the George C. Dix Professor of Constitutional Law at Northwestern University, on his book Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance through Technology. McGinnis aims for an updated government that will use technology enabling it to fit with the progression of change in the twenty-first century. This involves improving the government's capability to better utilize accumulated information to make sounder public policy. Part of this, McGinnis argues, is in using prediction markets and ensuring that information flows more transparently to citizens. Also, government must not stand in the way of new developments like Artificial…Read More

This next Liberty Law Talk is with John McGinnis, the George C. Dix Professor of Constitutional Law at Northwestern University, on his book Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance through Technology. McGinnis aims for an updated government that will use technology enabling it to fit with the progression of change in the twenty-first century. This involves improving the government's capability to better utilize accumulated information to make sounder public policy. Part of this, McGinnis argues, is in using prediction markets and ensuring that information flows more transparently to citizens. Also, government must not stand in the way of new developments like Artificial…Read More

This next Liberty Law Talk is with John McGinnis, the George C. Dix Professor of Constitutional Law at Northwestern University, on his book Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance through Technology. McGinnis aims for an updated government that will use technology enabling it to fit with the progression of change in the twenty-first century. This involves improving the government's capability to better utilize accumulated information to make sounder public policy. Part of this, McGinnis argues, is in using prediction markets and ensuring that information flows more transparently to citizens. Also, government must not stand in the way of new developments like Artificial…Read More

The next Liberty Law Talk is with Paul Horwitz on his new book, First Amendment Institutions. Horwitz challenges the dominant legal perspective on free speech in American law, which focuses on speaker and state. Instead of this acontextual approach, Horwitz poses that speech is impossible without the institutions that both form it and give it the opportunity to be heard. Institutions are the "scaffolding" of the individual's right to free speech and should be accorded greater autonomy from the state in their self-government. Horwitz would include many state institutions in this category. Thus, the law, in regulating or permitting speech,…Read More

The next Liberty Law Talk is with Paul Horwitz on his new book, First Amendment Institutions. Horwitz challenges the dominant legal perspective on free speech in American law, which focuses on speaker and state. Instead of this acontextual approach, Horwitz poses that speech is impossible without the institutions that both form it and give it the opportunity to be heard. Institutions are the "scaffolding" of the individual's right to free speech and should be accorded greater autonomy from the state in their self-government. Horwitz would include many state institutions in this category. Thus, the law, in regulating or permitting speech,…Read More

The next Liberty Law Talk is with Paul Horwitz on his new book, First Amendment Institutions. Horwitz challenges the dominant legal perspective on free speech in American law, which focuses on speaker and state. Instead of this acontextual approach, Horwitz poses that speech is impossible without the institutions that both form it and give it the opportunity to be heard. Institutions are the "scaffolding" of the individual's right to free speech and should be accorded greater autonomy from the state in their self-government. Horwitz would include many state institutions in this category. Thus, the law, in regulating or permitting speech,…Read More

So we were told with the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act that too big to fail was now behind us. Except it isn't. In fact, the conditions supporting bank bailouts have only gotten worse with the nation's largest banks actually increasing in size and scope since 2008. TBTF, however, goes back farther than you might think. This podcast with Vern McKinley on his book, Financing Failure, discusses the regulatory history of bank bailouts rather than winding down insolvent institutions. Contrary to the Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke narrative of the 2008 crisis, although the scope of the problem was new,…Read More

So we were told with the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act that too big to fail was now behind us. Except it isn't. In fact, the conditions supporting bank bailouts have only gotten worse with the nation's largest banks actually increasing in size and scope since 2008. TBTF, however, goes back farther than you might think. This podcast with Vern McKinley on his book, Financing Failure, discusses the regulatory history of bank bailouts rather than winding down insolvent institutions. Contrary to the Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke narrative of the 2008 crisis, although the scope of the problem was new,…Read More

So we were told with the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act that too big to fail was now behind us. Except it isn't. In fact, the conditions supporting bank bailouts have only gotten worse with the nation's largest banks actually increasing in size and scope since 2008. TBTF, however, goes back farther than you might think. This podcast with Vern McKinley on his book, Financing Failure, discusses the regulatory history of bank bailouts rather than winding down insolvent institutions. Contrary to the Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke narrative of the 2008 crisis, although the scope of the problem was new,…Read More

This next Liberty Law Talk is with John Mueller, author of Redeeming Economics. Modern economic thought focuses on production, exchange, and consumption. Much of Mueller's focus, however, is on final distribution, or the notion that a great deal of our economic activity is really about providing benefits or gifts to those we love. Mueller returns to Aristotle to articulate why this missing element is so important for understanding economics. In his Politics, Aristotle described the economy by using a household model oikos, the root of our word economics, where agents distribute goods to increase the flourishing of family members and…Read More

This next Liberty Law Talk is with John Mueller, author of Redeeming Economics. Modern economic thought focuses on production, exchange, and consumption. Much of Mueller's focus, however, is on final distribution, or the notion that a great deal of our economic activity is really about providing benefits or gifts to those we love. Mueller returns to Aristotle to articulate why this missing element is so important for understanding economics. In his Politics, Aristotle described the economy by using a household model oikos, the root of our word economics, where agents distribute goods to increase the flourishing of family members and…Read More

This next Liberty Law Talk is with John Mueller, author of Redeeming Economics. Modern economic thought focuses on production, exchange, and consumption. Much of Mueller's focus, however, is on final distribution, or the notion that a great deal of our economic activity is really about providing benefits or gifts to those we love. Mueller returns to Aristotle to articulate why this missing element is so important for understanding economics. In his Politics, Aristotle described the economy by using a household model oikos, the root of our word economics, where agents distribute goods to increase the flourishing of family members and…Read More

Who could be more American than former president Theodore Roosevelt? You might be surprised if you listen to the next Liberty Law Talk with Jean Yarbrough on her newest book, Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition. Winner of the American Political Science Association's Richard Neustadt Award, Yarbrough's book is an incredible study of Roosevelt as student at Columbia, as an accomplished historical writer, and as a statesman. We might conclude, Yarbrough observes, that it is Roosevelt's robust American nationalism, his vigorous spirit, and his environmentalism that produced our national parks which marks him as a prominent president. Indeed, his place…Read More