Contract Consideration and Behavior
April 2, 2016

Contract recitals are ubiquitous. Yet, we have a thin understanding of how individuals behave with respect to these doctrinally important relics. Most jurists follow Lon Fuller in concluding that when read, contract recitals accomplish their purpose: to caution against inconsiderate contractual obligation. Notwithstanding the foundational role that this assumption has played in doctrinal and theoretical debates, it has not been tested. This Article offers what we believe to be the first experimental...

Carrie Fisher puts her ‘droid’ expertise to work for IBM Watson
April 2, 2016

Carrie Fisher may have made a name for herself battling the Empire with the likes of R2D2 and C3PO in Star Wars, but in her latest gig she’s putting her droid expertise to use in a decidedly more docile manner. As part of an IBM marketing campaign — and a larger unrelated effort — to rebrand artificial intelligence, IBM cast Fischer as a therapist in a “Coping with Humans” support group. * * * With $1 billion set aside to establish a business unit for IBM Watson in January 2014,...

Susskind: As Legal Work Decomposes Will Law Firms ‘Break Rank?’
March 31, 2016

In this video op-ed Richard Susskind, co-author of “The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts,” lays out the challenges facing law firms today, and what he believes will be the difference between success and struggle. In the upcoming second part of our video series, Susskind will respond to questions about the ideas he presents in his book, which was co-written with his son, Daniel Susskind, a lecturer in economics at Balliol College, Oxford. Hat...

ABA Dispute Resolution Skills Courses Highlighted
March 30, 2016

Improve Your Skills With Us! The Section of Dispute Resolution Spring Conference has skills programs for every...

ABA Dispute Resolution Conference April 7-9, 2016
March 30, 2016

The ABA Dispute Resolution Section Spring Conference is always a highlight. For 2016 it’s being held in New York City,...

Reflections on ABA TECHSHOW 2016 – Picture It Settled App In Good Company
March 29, 2016

On Saturday morning, I presented a session on recommended mobile apps along with Dallas attorney Tom Mighell (the author...

Are Choosers Losers? The Propensity to Under-Delegate in the Face of Potential Gains and Losses
March 27, 2016

Human beings are often faced with a pervasive problem: whether to make their own decisions or to delegate decision tasks...

People Prefer System 2 Nudges (Kind Of)
March 27, 2016

In the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and many other nations, those involved in law and policy have been exploring choice-preserving approaches, or “nudges,” informed by behavioral science and with the purpose of promoting important public policy goals, such as improved health and safety. But there is a large and insufficiently explored difference between System 1 nudges, which target or benefit from automatic processing, and System 2 nudges, which target or benefit from deliberative...

Japanese Robot Calls the Market Better Than a Human
March 26, 2016

On the 10th day of every month, Junsuke Senoguchi has just one thing on his mind -- the closing level of the Nikkei 225 Stock Average. That’s because Senoguchi, an unassuming man in his late 40s, has built a machine that’s been predicting the direction of Japanese shares, and once a month he gets a progress report on its success. The model makes a simple call -- whether the equity index will be higher or lower after 30 days -- and over almost four years it’s been right 68 percent of the time. “I’m...

Predictive Modeling – An Overview of Analytics in Claims Management
March 23, 2016

A 2012 Towers Watson survey of Property and Casualty claim officers found that 63% of respondents have started to explore...