Podcast

Welcome to The Marketplace of Ideas, a podcast series that provides original, high-quality information from events hosted by the Law & Economics Center at Scalia Law. Listeners will have access to content that is designed to enhance economic understanding and provide a consistent, rational voice that bolsters today’s policy discussions.

To listen, subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or via RSS on your podcast app of choice.

 

Recent Episodes


Fifteenth Annual Judicial Symposium on Civil Justice Issues

Listen in on the panels held during the Fifteenth Annual Judicial Symposium on Civil Justice Issues, a program that the LEC hosted from November 14-17, 2021 in Charleston, SC. This symposium tackled a broad range of timely issues such as liability for businesses during the ever-changing public health crisis with COVID-19, third party litigation funding, the role of judges in evaluating expert testimony, and many other riveting topics.

Reclaiming the Narrative: Voices from Indian Country

Click below to listen to the LEC’s Tribal Law & Economics Program series, Reclaiming the Narrative: Voices from Indian Country, where director of the program Adam Crepelle interviews tribal leaders, allowing them to share their own perspectives and discuss a wide range of issues from indigenous history to tribal courts.

Watch the full recordings of the interviews here.

Symposium on Novel Liability Theories and the Incentives Driving Them

The court system is often used as a testing ground for novel theories of liability. Some believe this is a valuable feature of the civil justice system, while others see it as a bug. This Symposium examined whether the potential gains of choosing courts as an avenue for accomplishing public policy goals drive this type of litigation and whether the incentives to pursue such novel litigation claims are directly proportional to the judicial system’s receptivity to creativity.

Listen in on expert panels from the Symposium on Novel Liability Theories and the Incentives Driving Them, a program that the LEC hosted from October 24 – 26, 2021 in Nashville, TN.

Forum on the Economic Legal Foundations of Capitalism with Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith

Listen in to the Forum on the Economic Legal Foundations of Capitalism with Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith, a program that the LEC hosted from September 9th to September 13, 2021. This program revisited the legal, economic, and philosophical insights from legends of capitalism, the Rule of Law, and economic liberties–including Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith. The program also explored how their time-tested understanding of these fundamental principles applies to current problems and concerns.

Ninth Annual Symposium on the Law & Economics of Privacy & Data Security

Click below to listen in on our fascinating program that featured panels on surveillance capitalism, the interplay between privacy and competition, and the future of online advertising. The symposium also included fireside chats with  FTC Commissioner, Noah Phillips, and Jon Fasman, the U.S. Digital Editor for The Economist, who discussed his new book We See It All: Liberty and Justice in the Age of Perpetual Surveillance The Ninth Annual PEP Symposium on the Law & Economics of Privacy & Data Security took place at the Antonin Scalia Law School on June 10, 2021.

 

Judicial Symposium on Scientific Methodology and the Admissibility of Expert Testimony

Listen in to the LEC’s Judicial Symposium on Scientific Methodology and the Admissibility of Expert Testimony, a symposium held from March 7 to March 11. This symposium helped judges better understand the tools and techniques used by scientific and other expert witnesses. With a combination of lectures, panel discussions, and case studies, the program gave insight into how experts apply the scientific method and offered practical lessons to help evaluate scientific reports and expert testimony.

The Symposium delved into the subjects of statistics, toxicology, and epidemiology and included presentations on the scientific method and the nature of expert testimony.  Leading scientists, legal scholars, and practitioners also discussed the intersection of science and policy, the recognition of good science in the courtroom, and the role of judges as gatekeepers.

Watch the full recordings of the panels for the Symposium here.

The Challenge of Recognizing Good Science in the Courtroom

 

Symposium on the Economics and Law of Civil Remedies: Developments in Damages and Nationwide Injunctions

Listen in to the LEC’s Symposium on the Economics and Law of Civil Remedies: Developments in Damages and Nationwide Injunctions, a virtual Symposium held on Friday, February 19, to hear four panel discussions that explored a few critical remedies-related topics facing lawyers, litigants, judges, state attorneys general, state and federal government administrators, federal and state legislators, and others. Diverse perspectives from leading experts were featured on each panel—discussing nationwide injunctions, punitive damages, high damage awards and their causes and consequences, methods of calculating damages including recent controversies over medical finance and phantom damages, and proposed and enacted legislative interventions in each of these categories.

Watch the full recordings from the Symposium here.

An Update on the Ongoing Debate over Nationwide Injunctions, Especially with a Change in Presidential Administration

Developments in Punitive Damages

The Controversy Over Trends in High Damage Awards

Issues in Documenting and Calculating Damages

 

Symposium on the Economics and Law of Pharmaceutical Regulation: Emerging Issues

Listen in to the LEC’s Symposium on the Economics and Law of Pharmaceutical Regulation: Emerging Issues, a virtual Symposium held on Thursday, January 28, to hear timely panel discussions on the emerging issues in the economics and law of pharmaceutical regulation as well as a keynote lecture on the Economics of Pharmaceutical Drug Development & Regulation from Kenneth I. Kaitin, Senior Fellow and former Director of the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development.

Watch the full recordings from the Symposium here. 

The Economics of Pharmaceutical Drug Development & Regulation

State Price Controls for Pharmaceutical Products

Federal Efforts to Control Pharmaceutical Products

Emerging State Interventions in Patent Settlements and Other Intellectual Property Matters Affecting Pharmaceuticals

 

Cost-Benefit Analysis and Regulatory Stability

Today’s episode of The Marketplace of Ideas brings you a conversation between two of the leading minds in the academy on cost-benefit analysis.

Caroline Cecot is an Assistant Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. She teaches administrative law, environmental law, and torts. Professor Cecot has published widely in leading journals, and is a co-author of the casebook Environmental Law and Policy, 4th Ed. (Foundation Press, 2019).

Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Cecot was a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in Law and Economics at Vanderbilt Law School and clerked for the Honorable Raymond J. Lohier, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She was also a Legal Fellow at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law. Professor Cecot is an affiliated scholar at the Atlantic Council, the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State, the Institute for Policy Integrity, and the Technology Policy Institute. She also regularly serves as an instructor in Law & Economics Center educational programming. She currently serves on the US Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board’s Economic Guidelines Review Panel.

Professor Cecot earned an AB degree, magna cum laude, in economics from Harvard College, a JD from Vanderbilt Law School, and a PhD in law and economics from Vanderbilt University. During her graduate studies, she received the Robert F. Jackson Prize and the Archie B. Martin Memorial Prize for her grades; and she was elected to Order of the Coif.

Click here to read Professor Cecot’s recent article, and the focal point for today’s episode, on “Deregulatory Cost-Benefit Analysis and Regulatory Stability.”

Michael ALivermore is the Edward F. Howrey Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. He teaches environmental law, administrative law, regulatory law and policy, and advanced seminars on these topics. Professor Livermore is a leading expert on the use of cost-benefit analysis to evaluate regulation, and has published widely in leading journals. He is the co-author of Reviving Rationality: Saving Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Sake of the Environment and Our Health (Oxford University Press, 2020) and Retaking Rationality: How Cost-Benefit Analysis Can Better Protect the Environment and Our Health (Oxford University Press, 2008).  He is also the co-editor of The Globalization of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Environmental Policy (Oxford University Press, 2013). Prior to joining the faculty, Livermore was the founding executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law.

Livermore earned his JD magna cum laude from NYU Law, where he was a Furman Scholar, was elected to the Order of the Coif, and served as a managing editor of the Law Review. After law school, he spent a year as a fellow at NYU Law’s Center on Environmental and Land Use Law before clerking for Judge Harry T. Edwards on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. Professor Livermore is also Professor Livermore is a public member of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

Click here to read Professor Livermore’s new book with Richard L. Revesz on “Reviving Rationality: Saving Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Sake of the Environment and Our Health.”

 

Links

Caroline Cecot, Deregulatory Cost-Benefit Analysis and Regulatory Stability, 68 Duke L.J. 1593 (2019), https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj/vol68/iss8/2

Michael A. Livermore and Richard L. Revesz, Reviving Rationality: Saving Cost-Benefit Analysis for the Sake of the Environment and Our Health, Oxford University Press (2020), https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780197539446.001.0001/oso-9780197539446

 

 

 

Using Risk Assessment Instruments to Reduce Incarceration

In today’s episode of The Marketplace of Ideas, Donald Kochan sits down with Chris Slobogin, the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law and Director of the Criminal Justice Program at Vanderbilt Law School, and Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt School of Medicine, to discuss Professor Slobogin’s recent monograph titled “A Primer on Risk Assessment: Instruments for Legal Decision-Makers.”

To read and download the primer, click here.

Chris Slobogin has authored more than 100 articles, books and chapters on topics relating to criminal law and procedure, mental health law and evidence. Named director of Vanderbilt Law School’s Criminal Justice Program in 2009, Professor Slobogin is one of the five most cited criminal law and procedure law professors in the country over the past five years, according to the Leiter Report, and one of the top fifty most cited law professors overall from 2005-2015, according to Hein Online. Particularly influential has been his work on the Fourth Amendment and technology and his writing on mental disability and criminal law, appearing in books published by the University of Chicago, Harvard University and Oxford University presses and in journals such as the Chicago Law ReviewGeorgetown Law JournalNorthwestern Law ReviewPennsylvania Law ReviewStanford Law Review and Virginia Law Review. Professor Slobogin has served as reporter for three American Bar Association task forces (on Law Enforcement and Technology; the Insanity Defense; and Mental Disability and the Death Penalty) and as chair of both the ABA’s task force charged with revising the Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards and the ABA’s Florida Assessment team for the Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. He is currently an Associate Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Principles of Police Investigation Project.

In recognition for his work in mental health law, in 2016 Professor Slobogin received both the American Board of Forensic Psychology’s Distinguished Contribution Award and the American Psychology-Law Society’s Distinguished Contribution of Psychology and Law Award; only a total of five law professors have received either of these awards in their thirty-year history, and none has received both awards. Before joining Vanderbilt’s law faculty, Professor Slobogin held the Stephen C. O’Connell chair at the University of Florida’s Fredric G. Levin College of Law. Professor Slobogin holds a secondary appointment as a professor in the Vanderbilt School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry.

 

 

COVID-19: Responsibility, Accountability, Liability, and Health Care Provider Duties of Care in a World of Rationing

Listen to today’s episode of The Marketplace of Ideas to hear Robert Jerry, Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor Emeritus of Law at University of Missouri School of Law, and David Hyman, Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Health Law & Policy atGeorgetown University Law Center, discuss Professor Jerry’s recent article on “COVID-19: Responsibility and Accountability in a World of Rationing” in the Journal of Law and the Biosciences.

Robert H. Jerry, II is the Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor of Law-Emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law. From 1998 to 2003, he held the Floyd R. Gibson Missouri Endowed Professorship at the University of Missouri School of Law. From 2003 to 2014, he served as dean of the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he also held the Levin Mabie and Levin Professorship (through 2015). He returned to MU Law as the Isidor Loeb Professor of Law in 2015, a position he held until his retirement on September 1, 2019 as the Gibson Missouri Endowed Professor-Emeritus. At the University of Missouri School of Law, he has been affiliated with the Center for Dispute Resolution as a Senior Fellow since 2003. As an emeritus faculty member, he maintains an active research agenda. He received his JD from the University of Michigan Law School, where he was a member of the Michigan Law Review, and his undergraduate degree from Indiana State University.

Dr. David Hyman focuses his research and writing on the regulation and financing of health care. He teaches or has taught health care regulation, civil procedure, insurance, medical malpractice, law & economics, professional responsibility, and tax policy. He is the author of dozens of scholarly articles in leading legal and medical journals, and several books including Overcharged: Why Americans Pay Too Much For Health Care published by the Cato Institute in 2018 and co-authored with Charles Silver, and the Economics of Health Law published by Edward Elgar in 2016 and co-authored with Ronen Avraham and Charles Silver. Hyman received his BA, JD and MD from the University of Chicago.

 

 

Civil Justice Fest: A Month of Dialogues On the Most Pressing Civil Justice Issues

Listen in to the LEC’s Civil Justice Fest, a webinar series held throughout the month of November aimed to help make sense of America’s rapidly changing civil justice environment.

Watch the full recordings of each Civil Justice Fest panel here, and follow the Law & Economics Center on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to keep up with our #12DaysofCivilJustice with posts highlighting each Civil Justice Fest webinar.

Managing Dockets and Judicial Resources During COVID-19 While Preserving Standards of Fairness and Justice

 

Looking Forward: Civil Justice Issues in the Next Administration and New Congress

 

The Expanding Scope of Public Nuisance and Locality Litigation: The Role of Precedent, Consistency, and the Rule of Law

 

Tort Liability for Businesses During COVID-19: How to Determine the Duty of Care During a Pandemic While Incentivizing Safe Commercial Activity

 

Developments in Products and Other Liability for E-Commerce Marketplaces and Other Platforms

 

The Role of Courts in Managing New Theories of Remedies: The Debates on Medical Financing, Social Inflation, Phantom Damages, and Other Emerging Trends

 

Behind the Curtain at the American Law Institute (ALI): Drafting and Approving Restatements of Law at the ALI and Their Proper Weight in Judicial Decisionmaking

 

Dissecting the Development of Claims: Trends in Lawyer Advertising and Third Party Litigation Financing

 

The Proper Judicial Standards for Evaluating and Ensuring Quality in Expert Testimony

 

The Interplay Between Medical Device Regulatory Reviews and Civil Liability Standards: A Case Study of Issues Surrounding FDA 510(k) Clearance

 

The New California Privacy Act and Other Emerging Issues in Privacy Litigation

 

A Survey of Emerging Issues in Civil Justice

 

 

Crossing Borders, Breaking Borders

On September 17, the LEC held a co-sponsored webinar with Indiana University Bloomington’s Maurer School of Law on two new books that critically examine new ideas about migration, secession, and political freedom.

Professor of Law at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, Ilya Somin, argues for the expansion of people’s ability to “vote with their feet” across domestic and international boundaries in his book Free to Move. Timothy Waters, Professor of Law and Val Nolan Faculty Fellow at Indiana University Maurer School of Law and Associate Director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy, argues for a radical rethink of the opposition to secession asking in his book Boxing Pandora if secession is dangerous, or a pathway to stability?

Tune in to this episode of The Marketplace of Ideas to hear both authors present their arguments, and Professor Sanford Levinson, W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial Chair and Professor of Government at The University of Texas at Austin School of Law, comment on both books.

 

 

Elementary School Teacher Use of EdTech

Listen in to a new episode of The Marketplace of Ideas to hear a panel discussion on the findings of a new report by James Cooper, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Program on Economics & Privacy at George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School.

The new report, titled “Elementary School Teacher Use of EdTech,” sheds light on the frequency and types of edtech used in the classroom, as well as the relationship between privacy training, edtech guidelines or state student privacy laws with the willingness to use edtech.

Please click here to read a copy of James Cooper’s report.

Click here to read the Executive Summary of the report.

 

 

The Practical Utility of Public Choice Economics: A View from the Department of Justice with Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark

Listen in to a new episode of The Marketplace of Ideas to hear a view from the Department of Justice with Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark.

In today’s episode, Deputy Executive Director of the Law & Economics Center, Donald Kochan, sits down with Jeffrey Bossert Clark to discuss the role that law and economics, including public choice, has had in his role at the Department of Justice and across his career.

Jeffrey Bossert Clark began serving as Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Division on September 5, 2020.  Mr. Clark also is the Assistant Attorney General of the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD), a position to which he was confirmed in October 2018. Prior to his confirmation as Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Clark was a partner with the international law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP in its Washington, DC office. During his time at the firm, he practiced in diverse areas of law, ranging from environmental to antitrust.

From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Clark served as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General within ENRD.  In that role, he oversaw ENRD’s Appellate Section and the Indian Resources Section, where he reviewed, edited, and contributed to virtually every brief that ENRD filed in the Courts of Appeals, including several cases of exceptional significance that he personally briefed and argued. During his time in ENRD, Mr. Clark also worked on all environmental or natural resource cases argued in front of the Supreme Court.

Mr. Clark received his bachelor’s degree in economics and history from Harvard University and earned a master’s degree in urban affairs and public policy from the University of Delaware.  He obtained his law degree from the Georgetown University Law Center, where he was an editor for the Georgetown Law Journal.  Mr. Clark has taught classes as an adjunct professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School. From 2012 to 2015, he served as an elected member of the Governing Council of the American Bar Association’s Administrative Law Section.

For additional informationsee:

(1) “Using Supplemental Environmental Projects (“SEPs”) in Settlements with State and Local Governments,” Memorandum from Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Assistant Attorney General, to ENRD Deputy Assistant Attorney Generals and Chiefs of the Environmental Enforcement, Environmental Defense, Environmental Crimes, Natural Resources, and Wildlife & Marine Resources Sections, Aug. 19, 2019, available at https://www.justice.gov/enrd/page/file/1197056/download.

(2) “Supplemental Environmental Projects (“SEPs”) in Civil Settlements with Private Defendants,” Memorandum from Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Assistant Attorney General, to ENRD Deputy Assistant Attorney Generals and Section Chiefs, March 12, 2020, available at https://www.justice.gov/enrd/page/file/1257901/download.