Daniel Klerman
USC Gould School of Law

Daniel Klerman teaches Civil Procedure, Property, Concepts in American Law, and English Legal History.

In 2014, he received the Student Bar Association (SBA) Faculty Appreciation (“Outstanding Professor”) Award.

Klerman’s scholarship concentrates on Civil Procedure, English Legal History, and Law and Economics. His publications include “Forum Selling” (Southern California Law Review, 2016) (with Greg Reilly), “Inferences from Litigated Cases,” (Journal of Legal Studies, 2014) (with Yoon-Ho Alex Lee) and “Jurisdictional Competition and the Evolution of the Common Law" (University of Chicago Law Review, 2007).

Klerman will be a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Hebrew University in 2024. In 2004, he was awarded the Sutherland Prize from the American Society for Legal History for best article on English legal history. In 2001, he received the David Yale Prize from the Selden Society for distinguished contribution to the history of the laws and legal institutions of England and Wales.

Klerman served on the Board of Directors of the American Law & Economics Association from 2009-2012 and was co-president of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies in 2008-09. He is on the editorial boards of Law & History Review and Journal of Legal Analysis. He is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and served as USC Law's Associate Dean for Academic Affairs 2009-2011. 

Klerman received his BA from Yale University and his JD and PhD in History from the University of Chicago. He clerked for The Honorable Richard A. Posner, judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and for The Honorable John Paul Stevens, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. In addition to USC Gould School of Law, he has taught at the University of Chicago Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, the California Institute of Technology, Sichuan University, Tel Aviv University Law School, and the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya.

Works in Progress

• “Contingent Fees and Access to Justice” (with Eric Helland)
• "Updating Priest and Klein" (with Yoon-Ho Alex Lee). - (SSRN)

Publications

• "Law Matters — Less Than We Thought" (with Holger Spamann), 40 Journal of Law, Economics & Organization (forthcoming 2024).  - (SSRN)
•  "Settlement Around the World: Settlement Rates in the Largest Economies," forthcoming at Journal of Legal Analysis (with Yun-chien Chang) - (SSRN)
• “Bias in Choice of Law: New Empirical and Experimental Evidence,” forthcoming in Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics - (SSRN)
• "The Transformation of the Art Market: Law, Norms and Institutions" (with Anja Shortland), 23 Theoretical Inquiries in Law 219-41 (2022). - (PDF)
• "Reputational Economies of Scale,” 65 International Review of Law and Economics (forthcoming 2021) (with Miguel de Figueiredo) - (SSRN) - (PDF)
• “Comment on Brady, Evans & Wehrly, Reputational Penalties for Environmental Violations: A Pure and Scientific Replication Study,” 63 International Review of Law & Economics (2020). - (PDF)
• “Posner and Class Actions,” 86 University of Chicago Law Review 1097 (2019) - (www) - (SSRN)
• “Forum Selling Abroad,” 92 Southern California Law Review 487-559 (2019) (with Stefan Bechtold and Jens Frankenreiter).
    - (PDF)
• "Litigation and Selection With Correlated Two-Sided Incomplete Information," 20 American Law and Economics Review 382-459 (2018) (with Yoon-Ho Alex Lee and Lawrence Liu). - (PDF)
• “Maybe There Is No Bias in the Selection of Disputes for Litigation,” 174 Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 143-70 (2018) (with Eric Helland and Yoon Ho Alex Lee) - (SSRN)
• "Quantitative Legal History," in Oxford Handbook of Legal History (Markus Dubber and Christopher Tomlins, eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2018). - (PDF)
• "Contingent Fee Litigation in New York City" 70 Vanderbilt Law Review 1971-1992 (2017) (with Eric Helland, Brendan Dowling, and Alexander Kappner). - (PDF) - (SSRN)
• "Economics of Legal History," in Oxford Handbook of Law & Economics, Francesco Parisi, ed., (2017). - (SSRN) - (PDF)
• "Takings, Fiscal Illusion, and the Median Voter," 173 Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE) 71 (March 2017) (comment on article by Urs Schweizer). - (SSRN) - (PDF)
• “Forum Selling and Domain-Name Disputes,”  48 Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 561 (2016) (symposium on judicial decisionmaking). - (PDF)
• “The Priest-Klein Hypotheses: Proofs and Generality” 47 International Review of Law and Economics 59 (2016) (with Yoon-Ho Alex Lee). - (SSRN) - (PDF)
• "Forum Selling," 89 Southern California Law Review 241-315 (2016) (with Greg Reilly). - (SSRN) - (PDF)
• “Inside the Caucus: An Empirical Analysis of Mediation from Within,” 12 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 686-715 (2015) (with Lisa Klerman). - (SSRN) - (PDF)
• "The Economics of Civil Procedure," Annual Review of Law and Social Science (2015) - (SSRN) - (PDF)
• "Jurisdiction, Choice of Law, and Property," in Law and Economics of Possession, Yun-chien Chang, ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2015). - (SSRN) - (www)
• Economics of Legal History, in Economic Analysis of Law series, Francesco Parisi and Richard Posner, eds. (Elgar Publishing, 2015) (reprint collection with original introduction).
• "Walden v. Fiore and the Federal Courts: Rethinking FRCP 4(k)(1)(A) and Stafford v. Briggs," 19 Lewis & Clark Law Review 713-724 (2015) (Symposium issue). - (SSRN) - (www)
• "Inferences from Litigated Cases," 43 Journal of Legal Studies 209-248 (2014) (lead article) (with Yoon-Ho Alex Lee). - (SSRN) - (www)
• “Rethinking Personal Jurisdiction,” 6 Journal of Legal Analysis 245-303 (2014). - (SSRN)
• "An Economic Analysis of Subject Matter Jurisdiction Waiver: A Response to Professor Beuhler," 89 Washington Law Review Online 1 (2014). - (SSRN) - (www)
• "Reading, Writing, and Questions in Advance: Teaching English Legal History," Symposium on Teaching Legal History, 53 American Journal of Legal History 466 (2013). - (SSRN) - (Hein)
• "Personal Jurisdiction and Product Liability," 85 Southern California Law Review 1551-1596 (2012). - (SSRN) - (Hein)
• "The Selection of Thirteenth-Century Disputes for Litigation," 9 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 320-346 (2012). - (SSRN)
• "Legal Origin or Colonial History?" 3 Journal of Legal Analysis 379-409 (2011) (with Paul Mahoney, Holger Sapmann, and Mark Weinstein). - (SSRN) - (Hein)
• "Corruption and Private Law Enforcement: Theory and History," 6 Review of Law & Economics 75-96 (2010) (with Nuno Garoupa). - (SSRN)
• "The Emergence of English Commercial Law: Analysis Inspired by the Ottoman Experience," 71 Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 638-646 (2009). - (SSRN)
• "Jurisdictional Competition and the Evolution of the Common Law," 74 University of Chicago Law Review 1179 (2007). - (SSRN) - (Hein)
• "Legal Origin?" 35 Journal of Comparative Economics 278-293 (2007) (with Paul Mahoney). - (SSRN)
• "Legal Infrastructure, Judicial Independence, and Economic Development," 19 Pacific McGeorge Global Business & Development Law Journal 427-434 (2007). - (SSRN) - (Hein)
• "Trademark Dilution, Search Costs, and Naked Licensing," 74 Fordham Law Review 1759-1973 (2006). - (SSRN) - (Hein)
• "The Value of Judicial Independence: Evidence from Eighteenth-Century England," 7 American Law & Economics Review 1-27 (2005) (with Paul Mahoney). - (SSRN)
• "Corruption and the Optimal Use of Nonmonetary Sanctions," 24 International Review of Law & Economics 219-225 (2004) (with Nuno Garoupa). - (SSRN)
• "Was the Jury Ever Self-Informing?" 77 Southern California Law Review 123-150 (2003). - (SSRN) - (Hein)
• "Statistical and Economic Approaches to Legal History," 2002 University of Illinois Law Review 1167. - (SSRN) - (Hein)
• "Women Prosecutors in Thirteenth-Century England," 14 Yale Journal of Law and Humanities 271 (2002). - (Hein)
• "Optimal Law Enforcement with a Rent-Seeking Government," 4 American Law and Economics Review 116 (2002) (with Nuno Garoupa). - (SSRN)
• "Settlement and the Decline of Private Prosecution in Thirteenth Century England," 19 Law and History Review 1 (2001). - (SSRN) - (Hein)
• "Non-Promotion and Judicial Independence," 72 Southern California Law Review 455 (1999). - (Hein)
• "Settling Multidefendant Lawsuits: The Advantage of Conditional Setoff Rules," 25 Journal of Legal Studies 445 (1996). - (SSRN) - (www)
• "An Economic Analysis of Mary Carter Settlement Agreements," 83 Georgetown Law Journal 2215 (1995) (with Lisa Bernstein). - (Hein)

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

Annenberg Media
September 19, 2023
Re: Thomas Lenz

Thomas Lenz was quoted by Annenberg Media about the United Automobile Workers union ready to go on strike. "Strikes affect the livelihoods of those who choose to stop working. To the extent those persons aren’t earning money to spend that means stores, restaurants, and other businesses might not be as busy. If a strike lasts a long time bills might not get paid as easily, if at all," Lenz wrote.

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP

Mugambi Jouet
August, 2023

“Guns, Mass Incarceration, and Bipartisan Reform: Beyond Vicious Circle and Social Polarization,” 55 Arizona State Law Journal 239 (2023).

Edward McCaffery
August, 2023

"The Curiouser and Curiouser Case of Carried Interest" (with Darryll K. Jones), Arizona Law Review (Spring 2024).

Scott Altman
August, 2023

"Are Parents Fiduciaries," 42 Law and Philosophy 431 (2023).