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Hawai’i: The Cultural Power of Law (Princeton University Press, 2000), integrates and applies her long-term theoretical interest in legal pluralism. Merry has long argued for understanding the interrelation among multiple legal systems within a society, which is both especially evident and particularly important in colonial societies. The book, which received the 2001 J. Willard Hurst Prize from the Law and Society Association, studies the legal systems and patterns of social control in Hawaii prior to its formal annexation. In Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness Among Working Class Americans (University of Chicago Press, 1990), Merry offered the first full-length study of the attitudes of litigants and judges in local district courts, small claims courts, and mediation services. Exploring the discrepancy between the aims and aspirations of litigants and the treatment they receive in the courts, the book reveals widespread legal entitlement among working-class Americans, as well as a tendency for lower courts to deflect these claims and convert them into moral or psychological problems. In her first book, Urban Danger: Life in a Neighborhood of Strangers (Temple University Press, 1981), Merry focused on an ethnically mixed Boston community’s response to and perception of crime, arguing that an individual’s sense of danger is culturally mediated and shaped by perceptions of racial difference. Recently she completed a book called Global Law: Women’s Human Rights and the Meanings of Culture. It examines the production of a global human rights law and its appropriation in several Asia/Pacific countries. She is currently launching a new National Science Foundation-funded research study on human rights and local legal consciousness based on case studies of women’s use of human rights discourse in India, China, Nigeria, and Peru. The author of nearly 100 scholarly articles and reviews, Merry’s other books include Law and Empire in the Pacific: Hawai’i and Fiji (co-edited with Donald Brenneis, School of American Research Press, 2004) and The Possibility of Popular Justice: A Case Study of American Community Mediation (co-edited with Neal Milner, University of Michigan Press, 1993). She is past president of the Law and Society Association and the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology. Merry received her master’s degree from Yale University in 1967, a year after she graduated from Wellesley College. ■
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Visiting Faculty Sir John Baker A leading authority on the development of English legal institutions, Sir John Baker is the Downing Professor of the Laws of England at Cambridge University. In addition to his appointment as a Senior Golieb Fellow at the Law School, Sir John was also a fellow of the British Academy in 1984 and a fellow of St. Catharine’s College, Cambridge University, in 1971. He received the Ames prize from Harvard Law School, and an honorary LL.D. from the University of Chicago. The author of more than 25 books and 100 articles, Sir Baker is the general editor of the Oxford History of the Laws of England and general editor of the Cambridge Studies in English Legal History. He has held positions at Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, the Huntington Library, the University of Oxford, and the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He is returning to the NYU School of Law after serving on the Global Law Faculty. “It is a privilege to teach at one of the leading law schools in the United States, and to introduce selected students to the legal heritage shared with England,” he says. Sir John was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in June 2003 for his significant contributions to English legal history. A note from Parliamentary proceedings illustrates Sir John’s prominence in British law: “In the matter concerning the attire of judges and barristers, Parliament shall make recommendations subject to the approval of Her Majesty, the Queen, and Dr. John Baker.”
Stephen Choi Stephen Choi, one of the nation’s preeminent securities law scholars, is visiting from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, where he is the Roger J. Traynor Professor of Law. Choi’s research combines creative theoretical work with empirical analysis of corporations and capital markets and the actual effect of securities law reforms. His numerous articles about the regulation of securities markets have appeared in a litany of prominent law review publications. Among his most notable recent published works are “How to Fix Wall Street: A Voucher Financing Proposal,” Yale Law Journal (2003), and “Behavioral Economics and the SEC,” Stanford Law Review (2003), with
Adam Pritchard. A number of his articles, including “The Unfounded Fear of Regulation S: Empirical Evidence on Offshore Securities Offerings,” Duke Law Review (2000) and “Market Lessons for Gatekeepers,” Northwestern University Law Review (1998), were recognized by the Corporate Practice Commentator as among the best corporate and securities law articles of the year. Much of Choi’s current research uses empirical data to investigate whether it is possible to reduce frivolous private securities lawsuits without consequentially deterring worthy claims of fraud. “There is no magic bullet that can eliminate only frivolous litigation while allowing more meritorious suits to go forward,” says Choi. He became interested in this issue after the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act was enacted in 1995, which, in an effort to reduce frivolous suits, raised the costs of litigating a securities claim. Choi taught as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School from 1996 to 1998, and he was a visiting professor at Yale Law School from 2000-2001. As a student at Harvard Law School, Choi was the supervising editor of the Law Review, and graduated first in his class in 1994. He is a recipient of the Fay Diploma, the Sears Prize, and the Irving Oberman Memorial Award. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1997.
John Duffy John Duffy is known for his unique perspective on the patent and trademark office. He is currently focused on reconciling the law and economics of 20th century industrial regulations with those of 21st century intellectual property. “Much of the wisdom from this earlier body of legal and economic thought has direct and interesting applications to intellectual property,” he says. More narrowly, he is interested in the application of the patent system on pharmaceuticals. Duffy wrote the casebook Patent Law and Policy (3rd ed. 2002), with Robert Patrick Merges and is most well known for his article, “Rethinking the Prospect Theory of Patents,” Chicago Law Review (2004), which reexamines a traditional justification
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