Description
This excerpt from a review of Regulating Contracts by Anthony Ogus discusses the book's strengths and weaknesses. Ogus praises the book for its innovative approach and its broad coverage of contract law, but he notes that the book's conclusions may be controversial.
Using an interdisciplinary approach involving economics, sociology, and law, Regulating Contracts explores fundamental questions about contracts and legal regulation. What kind of social relation do contracts create, or, more precisely, how do contracts cover social interaction? How are contractual relations or more generally markets constructed? Does the law play a significant role in contractual practices, and in particular what do lawyers, courts, and legal sanctions contribute to the contractual social order? For what distributive purposes does the law attempt regulation? The controversial conclusions of this study suggest that the law plays an insignificant role in the construction of markets, and that law and lawyers could provide better assistance by using indeterminate regulation that permits the recontextualization of legal reasoning. Legal regulation of contracts concerned with redistributive tasks, such as redress of unfairness, countering unjust power relations, and access to justice, is evaluated both with respect to the objectives of regulation and the search for the most efficient and efficacious form of regulation. Review: Regulating Contracts is the most innovative and important book on contract written in this country since The Rise and Fall of Freddom of Contract. David Campbell Oxford Journal of Legal Studies Vol. 20 2000 ...bold and imaginative monograph...many merits...multi-disciplinary approach...all is written in an elegant, jargon-free language...stregthened by a keen awareness of empirical fact. Regulating Contracts is an outstanding work of scholarship. It should be very widely read. Anthony Ogus The Law Quarterly Review October 2000 Regulating Contracts is an ambitious and comprehensive book ... an important contribution to contract-law scholarship. Robert A. Hillman, Journal of Law and Society Regulating Contractsis an imprtant and intersting book. The book will reward the reader with insights on virtually every aspect of contract law. Robert A. Hillman, Journal of Law and Society
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