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Abstract
In recent years, scholars have devoted increasing attention to the prospect of personalized law. The bulk of the literature has so far concerned whether to personalize any law and, if so, what substantive changes should be instantiated through personalization. Comparatively little discussion has gone to the authorship of personalized laws. Who will make personalized laws? Who will enforce them? In this Essay, I propose we consider the who in the personalization debate. Specifically, I identify the policy considerations that bear on the optimal maker or enforcer of personalized law. To put it another way, my Essay begins where most of the prior literature leaves off: having concluded that personalized law has some merit in a given area, I ask when the state should facilitate personalized lawmaking by nonstate actors.
While there are many threads in the discussion, one theme emerges: the move to personalized law is often best taken by private lawmakers. Thus, as both a descriptive and normative matter, a future that makes the best use of personalized law should involve a diminished role for state directives.
Recommended Citation
Verstein, Andrew
(2019)
"Privatizing Personalized Law,"
University of Chicago Law Review: Vol. 86:
Iss.
2, Article 1.
Available at:
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclrev/vol86/iss2/1