Touro Law Faculty Blog

In late March, Professor Hal Abramson presented the most recent draft of his article, “Deadline Negotiations,” as the featured speaker at the University of California in San Francisco.  The paper addresses a common experience that has received surprisingly little attention in the literature – what do when in a rushed negotiation. Professor Abramson presented his paper in San Franscisco to both an in-person and even larger zoom audience.

The announcement for Professor Abramson’s presentation is available here: Deadline Negotiations – UC Law San Francisco (Formerly UC Hastings) (uclawsf.edu).

Assistant Professor Lauren Roth attended the University of Michigan Law School’s 10th Annual Junior Scholars Conference this month in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  The conference organizers invited papers related to the theme of Reimagining the Public-Private Divide because of recent assertions that “the dividing legal line between the public sphere and private sphere is increasingly being blurred—or vanishing.” 

Professor Roth’s abstract, The Fiduciary Game, was chosen from approximately 400 applications after a peer review process.  The conference is considered to be one of the most prominent for junior legal scholars.

In her paper, Professor Roth asserts that fiduciary duties do not sufficiently constrain self-interested behavior by fiduciaries who engage in public or quasi-public functions (e.g., corporate directors and health plan administrators) and therefore fail to protect beneficiaries.  She uses game theory to demonstrate why fiduciaries do not behave in socially desirable ways in spite of public perception about the efficacy of such legal restrictions.  Her proposals include more targeted regulations and less outsourcing to private actors when fiduciaries continue to put their self-interest ahead of beneficiaries’ interests. 

During the conference, Professor Roth presented her work and received feedback from peers and members of the University of Michigan faculty.  Notably, Professor David Miller from the Department of Economics spent a significant amount of time discussing game theory during and after her panel, and Professor J.J. Prescott, Co-director of Michigan Law School’s Empirical Legal Studies Center and Program in Law and Economics, also provided important feedback.