Shawn J. Bayern, our Larry and Joyce Beltz professor of torts and associate dean for technology, recently published A Research Agenda for Organizational Law (Edward Elgar 2024). The book presents a critical overview of the current state of organizational law. It demonstrates that legal organizations are much more generative than widely recognized, with the capacity to enable new configurations that combine several legal transactional techniques. In the book, Professor Bayern considers the implications of this flexibility for monitoring, regulation, and reform, examines the effects of modern transactional creativity on the rest of the legal system, suggests how organizational statutes might be harmonized, introduces non-traditional uses of modern organizations like LLCs, and proposes novel ways to regulate organizations.

“It might surprise people to learn how exciting research into LLCs can be,” said Bayern. “Organizations are not as limited as they used to be, and there are possibilities for zero-member LLCs and other new types of forms that enable creative transactions. These possibilities interact with new regulatory requirements, like the Corporate Transparency Act, in interesting ways.”

Professor Bayern’s research focuses on common law, primarily in contract law, tort law, and organizational law. He has published numerous books and scholarly articles in top journals. Please join me in congratulating him on the publication of his latest book!