Boilerplate: The Foundation of Market Contracts »

Omri Ben-Shahar joined the Michigan Law School faculty in
1999. He founded and has been named director of the Olin Center for Law and Economics at Michigan. He previously taught as a professor of law and economics at Tel-Aviv University and was a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.Dr Ben-Shahar teaches courses in Contracts, Electronic Commerce, Intellectual Property, and Economic Analysis of Law. He holds a B.A. in economics and LL.B. from Hebrew University, and an LL.M., S.J.D., and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard. He is the Chair Elect of the Contracts Section of the American Association of Law Schools, and a board member of the American Law and Economics Association.Dr. Ben-Shahar writes in the fields of contract law and products liability. His work has been published in many journals, including the Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Journal of Law and the American Law and Economics Review.

This book explores the boilerplate, or the fine print of mass-distributed contracts: what it says, who writes it, and who reads it.

Preface     ix
List of Contributors     xv
Why is Boilerplate One-Sided?
One-Sided Contracts in Competitive Consumer Markets   Lucian A. Bebchuk   Richard A. Posner     3
Cooperative Negotiations in the Shadow of Boilerplate   Jason Scott Johnston     12
Boilerplate and Economic Power in Auto-Manufacturing Contracts   Omri Ben-Shahar   James J. White     29
"Unfair" Dispute Resolution Clauses: Much Ado about Nothing?   Florencia Marotta-Wurgler     45
The Unconventional Uses of Transaction Costs   David Gilo   Ariel Porat     66
Should Boilerplate Be Regulated?
Online Boilerplate: Would Mandatory Web Site Disclosure of e-Standard Terms Backfire?   Robert A. Hillman     83
Preapproved Boilerplate   Clayton P. Gillette     95
"Contracting" for Credit   Ronald J. Mann     106
The Role of Nonprofits in the Production of Boilerplate   Kevin E. Davis     120
The Boilerplate Puzzle   Douglas G. Baird     131
Interpretation of Boilerplate
Contract as Statute   Stephen J. Choi   G. Mitu Gulati     145
Modularity in Contracts: Boilerplate and Information Flow   Henry E. Smith     163
Contra Proferentem: The Allure of Ambiguous Boilerplate   Michelle E. Boardman     176
Commentary
Boilerplate Today: The Rise of Modularity and the Waning of Consent   Margaret Jane Radin     189
The Law and Sociology of Boilerplate   Todd D. Rakoff     200
Notes     211
Index     233