LAW AND ECONOMICS
Econ 430

Spring 2014  //  8:00 – 9:05 MWF, Room 404 DBH
Professor Mike DeBow
726-2434  medebow@samford.edu
Room 208 Robinson Hall (Law School)
Office hours:  9:30-10:30 MWF & 4:30-6:00 MWTh, and by appointment
Secretary:  Erin Boggan, 726-2880, Room 202 Robinson Hall
 

Required texts   R.H. Coase, The Firm, the Market, and the Law (paperback ed. 1990) and David D. Friedman, Law's Order: What Economics Has to Do with Law and Why It Matters (paperback ed. 2001).  There are two webbed versions of the Friedman text, at www.daviddfriedman.com/laws_order/index.shtml (with additional links) and www.daviddfriedman.com/Laws_Order_draft/laws_order_ToC.htm (much easier to read).

Attendance    Given the nature of this material, you should attend every class meeting.  If you miss a class, you remain responsible for the material covered in your absence.  I will take roll every class, and will fully enforce the Business School’s attendance policy.  I reserve the right to adjust downward (by one step – e.g., from B+ to B) the grade of a student who misses what I consider an excessive number of times, under all the relevant circumstances.     

Grading    Your grade will be computed as follows:

                                    Attendance/participation          20%

Test #1                                  20%

Test #2                                  30%

Final exam                             30%

January 29 & 31:  Snowed out.

February 3 M:  Introducing the American legal system -- 
                Friedman 103-111; read the abstract and skim section I of Mark Galanter, 
                The Vanishing Trial, read this short description of litigation risk analysis

February 5 W: chapter 1 in Friedman book; Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution, (Congress's "enumerated powers")
                and the decision in Bleckley v. Langston