A little while ago, I blogged about a program starting next week at Duke law and continuing throughout the next academic year on the relationship between law and custom. As I mentioned, the plan is to have a continuing academic dialogue at the law school that is broad enough to include large segments of the faculty and, eventually, other folks on campus as well.
Many of you sent in helpful suggestions on speakers, readings, format, and the like, for which we’re very grateful. As you can see from the more detailed program on our website, we’ve included many of your suggestions, and hope to solicit more as the year progresses.
The project kicks off next week with a series of summer reading group sessions:
May 3: Richard Craswell, Do Trade Customs Exist?, in The Jurisprudential Foundations of Corporate and Commercial Law (Jody S. Kraus & Steven D. Walt eds., 2000)
Frederick Schauer, Pitfalls in the Interpretation of Customary Law, in The Nature of Customary Law (Amanda Perreau-Saussine & James Bernard Murphy eds., 2007)
I hope to be back with updates to the reading list as the summer progresses, and we continue to welcome any suggestions for future readings.
During the school year, the project will sponsor a workshop series in which scholars from around the country will present work relating to the topic. Scheduled presenters include:
Emily Kadens, the Baker and Botts Professor in Law at the University of Texas, who will present the first workshop with a discussion of her paper relating to medieval merchant custom;
Jody Kraus, the Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia;
Richard McAdams, Professor of Law at the University of Chicago;
Annelise Riles, the Jack G. Clarke Professor of Far East Legal Studies and Professor of Anthropology at Cornell University;
Carol Rose, Lohse Chair in Water and Natural Resources, University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law, and Gordon Bradford Tweedy Professor Emeritus of Law and Organization and Professorial Lecturer in Law at Yale University;
Robert C. Ellickson, the Walter E. Meyer Professor of Property and Urban Law at Yale University.
I’m super excited about this group of workshop speakers. Individually, each yields great insights on law and custom – but I’m hoping that, as a group, with each workshop building on the one before, we can really make some headway on the topic.
The goal is to conclude the project with a symposium published in one of Duke’s law journals, featuring members of the Duke community from law and other disciplines. The project will also include our students (thanks to a Lounge reader for this suggestion), who will have the opportunity to participate in a yearlong readings seminar on the topic and to attend some of the workshops and the symposium.
The project director is my colleague, Curt Bradley. If you have additional suggestions for Curt about this project, you should feel free to contact him directly at cbradley@law.duke.edu. And thanks again for all of your feedback so far!
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