Richard Epstein
Department: School of Law
Colleges / Universities: New York University
Contact
40 Washington Square South, 409A
New York, NY 10012
Email: richard.epstein@nyu.edu
Website: NYU faculty profile
Richard A. Epstein is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at NYU Law School. Prior to his joining the faculty, he was a visiting law professor at NYU from 2007 through 2009, while he was the James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago, the institution where he had taught since 1972 and served as Interim Dean in 2001. He has also been the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution since 2000. Prior to joining the University of Chicago Law School faculty, he taught law at the University of Southern California from 1968 to 1972.
He received an LLD, hc, from the University of Ghent, 2003. From 2001 to 2010, Professor Epstein was a director of the John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago, where he remains a faculty affiliate. He has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1985 and a Senior Fellow of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago Medical School since 1983. He served as editor of the Journal of Legal Studies from 1981 to 1991, and of the Journal of Law and Economics from 1991 to 2001.
He has taught courses in civil procedure, communications, constitutional law, contracts, corporations, criminal law, health law and policy, legal history, labor law, property, real estate development and finance, jurisprudence, labor law; land use planning, patents, individual, estate and corporate taxation, Roman Law, torts, and workers' compensation. He has written numerous articles on a wide range of legal and interdisciplinary subjects; he is presently at work on books dealing with the Private Property and the Rule of Law, and Classical Liberal Constitutionalism. He also writes a weekly column for Forbes.com.
Degrees
LLB Yale University, 1968
B.A. Oxford University, 1966
A.B. Columbia College, 1964
Recent Academic Article Summaries
Sequential Uses of Copyrighted Materials: Transforming the Transformative Use Doctrine in Andy Warhol Foundation v. Lynn Goldsmith
The case of Andy Warhol Foundation v. Lynn Goldsmith arose when one artist’s copyrighted work was used to create a second artist’s work. The key factor is the effect of the alleged infringement on the value of the first work.
The copyright owner of the original work should receive the fair market value of her contribution.
Liability Rules for Autonomous Vehicles: How Traditional Legal Relations Encourage Modern Technological Innovation
As autonomous vehicles (AVs) come into use, lawyers will guide courts’ choice of liability rules, the sanctions that apply when the rules of the road are broken. The best rule for many accidents involving AVs will be strict liability.
Traditional liability rules will serve well in AV accident cases. Regulators should avoid an overcautious approach that delays the benefits of AVs.
A Not Quite Contemporary View of Privacy
Leading nineteenth-century scholars assumed that the expansion of sweeping privacy rights was an inevitable aspect of legal progress. But the history of contract and tort law shows that the courts recognized narrow, minimal privacy rights to avoid imposing burdensome duties on others.
Technological advances will often require changes to legal doctrines. To avoid doing more harm than good, policymakers should minimize these changes as much as possible.
Why Incentives For "Patent Holdout" Threaten to Dismantle FRAND, And Why It Matters
Some favor manufacturers over innovators in disputes over licensing terms for standard-essential patents (SEPs). But manufacturers and innovators should receive reciprocal benefits from their commitment to licensing the SEPs. Manufacturers have a duty to negotiate in good faith.
Courts should enjoin a manufacturer’s use of technology if the manufacturer refused an offer of a license on fair terms. Patent holdout is now more of a real problem than holdup.
The FTC, IP, and SSOs: Government Hold-Up Replacing Private Coordination
The authors argue the FTC’s patent regulation proposal is an overreach that will disrupt and impede the IP marketplace.
The FTC’s proposal to change patent regulation is unnecessary and violates the notion that if “it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The FTC ought to exercise restraint rather than institute a rule that reduces private coordination in IP.
Blog Posts
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