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Essay

What Law Clinics Left Behind

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Though a familiar feature of legal education today, law clinics have a complex history. In the 1960s and 1970s, when student activists demanded curricular reform, law schools embraced clinics as a way to defuse the threat of student power. Looking back at this largely forgotten history helps illuminate the demands that were left behind, and demonstrates the. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: September 22, 2023

By LPE Editors

Paul Gowder on democratizing big tech, Ntina Tzouvala on legal theory in the lowercase, and Yiran Zhang on the disciplinary bureaucracy of our home care system. Plus, LPE night school, a new paper by Sanjukta Paul, Ganesh Sitaraman on airline deregulation, a must-read symposium at Bill of Health, Jessica Whyte reviews Quinn Slobodian, and a forum on Solidarity.. . .
Essay

The Care Bureaucracy

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In response to an expanding need for at home care, the state has established a highly bureaucratic system for delivering and compensating such assistance. This rigid approach to valuing care, in which needs are fragmented into easily quantifiable units, imposes under-recognized yet significant costs on workers and recipients alike.
Essay

Legal Theory in the Lowercase

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The idea that LPE is lacking in legal theory, as Sam Moyn has recently claimed, depends on what counts as legal theory. If we take Legal Theory to be a subject that is defined by the Marxism-related anxieties of CLS, then LPE work is severely under-theorised. If, instead, we endorse an idea of legal theory without capitalisation – a way of writing about. . .
Essay

Dismantle or Democratize Big Tech?

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With bipartisan calls to break up big tech, it is worth pausing to ask whether the proposed remedy matches the diagnosis of the problem. Antitrust breakups work best when there’s a clear conflict between public and company interests. Yet with some of the most pressing problems – such as the spread of disinformation – company and public interests. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: September 15, 2023

By LPE Editors

Dan Berger reflects on the long history of using RICO to criminalize resistance movements, Jed Purdy defends theoretical pluralism, and Brishen Rogers analyzes the NLRB’s Cemex case through the lens of contemporary legal theory. Plus, Lenore Palladino on labor’s green capital, Lev Menand and Morgan Ricks on the public utility roots of American banking,. . .
Essay

Cemex and the Right to Organize: Three Theories of the Case

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The NLRB’s recent Cemex decision should discourage employers from resisting unionization and therefore make it easier for workers to gain bargaining rights. But how should we understand the basis of this decision? Brishen Rogers considers the case from three theoretical perspectives: the liberal legalist, the progressive functionalist, and the low-key. . .
Essay

In Defense of Theoretical Pluralism

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Sam Moyn has recently suggested that the LPE movement should embrace an underlying account of what law does — and by extension, an account of capitalism and the state. But no single theoretical perspective, however self-consistent and well fortified, can match the complexity of our world. If we are to acknowledge this reality without falling into social-theoretic. . .
Essay

RICO and Stop Cop City: The Long War Against the Left

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In the case against the Stop Cop City activists, the state alleges a criminal conspiracy among people who have distributed flyers, coordinated a bail fund, and performed legal observation of protests. These charges are outlandish and represent a terrifying abuse of state power, but they are hardly novel. As the case of Ray Luc Levasseur shows, RICO has. . .
Weekly Roundup

Weekly Roundup: September 8, 2023

By LPE Editors

Samuel Moyn theorizes about the need for theory, Greg Baltz and Shakeer Rahman question whether tenant unions should look to labor law for inspiration, and Maryam Jamshidi explains how terrorism torts could challenge Israeli settler violence. Plus, Veena Dubal on Glacier Northwest, Tim Barker on The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order, Sandeep Vaheesan. . .
Essay

How Terrorism Torts Could Challenge Israeli Settler Violence

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Since the early 1990s, the United States has created a scheme of laws allowing private parties to sue individuals, organizations, and foreign countries for acts of terrorism in U.S. courts. While these laws have primarily been used to target and harass Palestinians, the recent spate of violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank presents a potential if. . .
Essay

Why Should Tenant Unions Look to Labor Law?

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With tenant organizing on the rise across the United States, legal scholars have been drawn to the idea that tenant unions, backed by the right legislative framework, could serve a function akin to labor unions. But labor and tenancy serve different functions for capitalism. Housing is a commodity that tenants consume rather than produce, so tenants would. . .
Essay

Does LPE Need Theory?

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Are we liberals or low-key Marxists? What is our theory of the “capitalism” that we so often attack? And above all, how do we understand the role of law in the making and unmaking of social order? Sam Moyn kicks off a new year at the Blog by asking whether the Law and Political Economy movement needs deeper theoretical foundations than it. . .

LPE Masthead

Managing Editor James Brandt Editoral Board Zohra Ahmed Corinne Blalock Veena Dubal Luke Herrine Amy Kapczynski Aziz Rana Kate Redburn Ntina Tzouvala Lisa Washington Noah Zatz Student Editors Liz Brown Eve Zelickson
Student Editor Emeriti Sam Aber Ashraf Ahmed Will Bloom Adam H. Bradlow Matthew Buck Brett Davidson Isabel Echarte Tariq El-Gabalawy Berto Elysee Molly Gordon Jeff Gordon Ruthie Lazenby Talya Lockman-Fine Chloe Miller Andrew Miller Roxana Moussavian Lydia Nicholson Ure Obioma