Academic

Welcome back to the second round in the Fourth Annual Conglomerate Junior Scholars Workshop.  Today's featured author is Ethan Leib, an associate professor at Hastings College of Law, where he teaches Contracts and Constitutional Law, among other things.  Ethan is a prolific scholar, writing on such varied topics as direct democracy, supermajoritarianism, and most recently the role of friendship and family ties in the law.  In addition to blogging at Prawfsblawg, Ethan also has an upcoming book (not his first) with our blog friends Jennifer Collins and Dan Markel with Oxford University Press, Privilege or Punish:  Criminal Justice and the Challenge of Family Ties.  Ethan's paper today strays over into our arena here at the Glom, Friends as Fiduciaries:

The Article argues that the law of fiduciary duties provides a good framework for friends to understand their duties to one another better, gives courts a useful set of rhetorical and analytical tools to employ when they are forced to entertain disputes that arise between close friends, and, finally, can help direct courts to furnish betrayed friends certain kinds of remedies that are most appropriate for achieving justice within that dispute context. This is not the first Article to make an effort to expand the reach of the fiduciary concept into new sorts of relationships that are not always considered within the ambit of fiduciary duty law. But the case for thinking of friends as fiduciaries is exceedingly persuasive and underappreciated, both in the law and in our lives.

Today's expert commentary will be provided by former workshop participant Eric Goldman, Brett McDonnell, Curtis Bridgeman, and Doug Moll. Each commentator's remarks will appear below this post. Readers, commentators, and authors are invited and encouraged to participate in the comments to this post. Happy Reading!