Saul Levmore, "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 focuses 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?

Saul Levmore is the William B. Graham Distinguished Service Professor of Law. This Chicago's Best Ideas lecture was presented on October 27, 2020.