Courts are willing, in commercial contests, to enforce promises even without consideration when enforcement supports a norm of reciprocity -- a norm which recognizes that such promises are seldom totally gratuitous, but are often made in furtherance of reciprocal, long-term, trust-based...

This article examines how courts enforce moral norms by manipulating doctrines· designed to root out wills that lack testamentary intent and by selectively imposing the strict compliance doctrine. First, I explore the undue influence doctrine to show how courts will often invalidate even...

Over the past decade, scandals involving nonprofit boards and conflicts of interest have been the subject of considerable public attention. The resulting bad publicity, Congressional hearings, and calls for reform have failed to mitigate the problem. In 2009 alone the country witnessed several...

The Fisk litigation is just one of several recent epic battles over restricted charitable gifts and changed circumstances, but it is important because it neatly illustrates the problems that the law creates and highlights the need for legal reform. After elaborating on this point, I examine the...

Scandals involving nonprofit boards and conflicts of interest continue to receive considerable public attention. Last month, for example, Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti charity became the target of intense criticism after the charity disclosed that it had regularly transacted business with Jean and...

Fiduciary duty law seeks to minimize agency costs that occur when the interests of the agent and principal diverge. That law is context specific: the substance depends upon the objectives of the fiduciary relationship and the degree to which other forces, such as markets and social norms, help...

Thirty years ago, John Langbein published The Nonprobate Revolution and the Future of Succession. The article celebrated testators' newfound ability to avoid the expense and delay of the probate-court system by holding assets in a variety of nonprobate devices, such as retirement and bank...

Americans currently hold more than $9 trillion in retirement savings accounts. Those accounts, together with the family home, are the principal source of wealth for most working and retired Americans. But when a retirement account holder dies prior to exhausting retirement savings, what governs...

In an article just published in the Yale Law Journal, Professor John Langbein argues for abolition of the "no-further-inquiry" rule. This rule has, for close to two hundred years, prohibited a trustee from engaging personally in transactions with the trust, unless the trustee obtains advance...

In steadily increasing numbers, trust scholars are embracing the view that fiduciary duties are mere default rules, freely waivable by the parties to the trust document. This view parallels the default rule model developed in corporate law by Frank Easterbrook and Daniel Fischel, who have argued...