The Nature of the Firm and the Size of Law Schools and other Organizations: One of Ronald Coase’s Nobel Prize winning ideas was that firms would grow until the cost of internal organization and monitoring of employees exceeded those of outsourcing. In this first episode of Chicago’s Best Ideas (a series aimed to expose students, and especially 1Ls, to great ideas that are associated with our Law School, but then also to tell us what if anything they contribute to our modern understanding of law and society), the lecture will focus on the nature and size of companies, law schools, families, and even cities, and perhaps nations. Why and when do we outsource? Is it all about costs and economics or is there a moral or accidental component to all this?

Chicago’s Best Ideas, or CBIs, are a Law School tradition. A faculty member gives a short talk about important idea developed at Chicago with an updated twist, often, but not always from the speaker’s own observations or scholarship. Everyone is invited, but the talk is always designed to be accessible by first year students. Come on Zoom and have lunch while you hear this talk – which will leave plenty of time for questions and your ideas.

Register for the Zoom Link