This seminar starts from the proposition that private law is a powerful force in both the creation and the destruction of community. In recent years, commentators across the ideological spectrum have blamed our overlapping crises of loneliness, political polarization, and economic inequality on the hollowing out of American civic and social life.
The concern of this speaker series will therefore be private law’s relation to American civic and social life. The three archetypal fields of private law — property, tort, and contract — each concern a fundamental aspect of life in community. This seminar aims to analyze these and other fields of private law along doctrinal, sociological, and critical theory lines to articulate the circumstances in which private law either enables community formation or undermines community life.
The 2026 Seminar is held Tuesdays from 12:10 to 1:30 p.m in SLB 129. The seminar is open to the Yale community. Readings will be posted for enrolled students one week prior to each session.
For any questions, please write to Abby Lemert, the Center’s Fellow in Private Law, at abby.lemert@yale.edu.
Spring 2026 Schedule
| January 27 | Robert Post, Meira Levinson & Gov. Jerry Brown Is Community Eroding? |
| February 3 | Sandeep Vaheesan & K. Sabeel Rahman Can Corporations Be Neighbors? |
| February 10 | Jennifer Herdt, Zoë Hitzig, & Jaron Lanier AI, Agency, and Human Relations |
| February 17 | Dean Leslie Kendrick & Molly Brady Public Nuisance as a Communal Tort |
| March 3 | Elisabeth Kincaid & Adam Levitin The Religious Roots of Usury |
| March 10 | Rory Van Loo & Stacy Mitchell Consumer Law and Local Economies |
| March 31 | Rev. Dr. Willie James Jennings & Brittany Farr The Spirit of Ownership |
| April 7 | Cristina Tilley & Daniel Rauch Dignitary Torts and Democracy |
| April 14 | Duncan Kennedy & Talha Syed CLS, LPE, and the Structure of Private Law |