Richard A. Epstein is a Manhattan Institute visiting scholar and one of the nation's most prolific legal thinkers. Epstein's writings span a broad array of fields, from the common-law subjects of property, contracts, and torts to constitutional law and law and economics. He is the author of numerous books, including Simple Rules for a Complex World (Harvard University Press, 1995) and Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain (Harvard University Press, 1985). He has written extensively on American health care, most recently in Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation (Yale University Press, 2006), and earlier in Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Right to Health Care? (Addison-Wesley, 1997). He is a columnist for Defining Ideas, from the Hoover Institution, and a contributor to The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Epstein was appointed the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law at New York University School of Law in 2010. He is also a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago, where he was on the regular faculty until his retirement at the end of 2010. In 1983 he became a senior fellow of that institution's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. At the University of Chicago he edited both the Journal of Legal Studies and the Journal of Law and Economics. He has also been, since 2000, the Peter and Kirstin Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Epstein holds undergraduate degrees from Columbia College and Oxford University and a law degree from Yale. He was awarded an honorary doctorate of law by Ghent University, in Belgium.

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[SORT BY CATEGORY] [SORT BY PUBLICATION TYPE]

Class Actions

Class Actions: The Need for a Hard Second Look Legal Policy Report, March 2002

Drug and Medical Device Litigation

Managed Care Liability Civil Justice Memo/Forum, Sept 2000

Employment Law

A Labor Dilemma For President Bam New York Post, 10-21-08

Mandatory Labor Arbitration Washington Times, 03-24-09

FDA Reform

Richard Epstein explains why the FDA should not fear conflicts-of-interest and gives his solutions for the dilemma. Podcast: Interview, October 19, 2010

Causing More Harm than Good: Conflict-of-Interest Rules Thwart Medical Progress Forbes.com, 10-26-10

Unshackle the FDA From Rules That Kill Innovation Forbes.com, 03-15-12

Healthcare

Unmanageable Competition Forbes.com, 11-24-09

Harry Reid Turns Insurance Into a Public Utility Wall Street Journal, 12-23-09

Impermissible Ratemaking in Health-Insurance Reform: Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional Point of Law, 12-18-09

How Conflict-of-Interest Rules Endanger Medical Progress and Cures Project FDA Report, October 2010

Unshackle the FDA From Rules That Kill Innovation Forbes.com, 03-15-12

Legal Issues

Managed Care Liability Civil Justice Memo/Forum, Sept 2000

Class Actions: The Need for a Hard Second Look Legal Policy Report, March 2002

The Employee Free Choice Act: Free Choice or No Choice for Workers Civil Justice Memo/Forum, March 2009

Politics

Mandatory Labor Arbitration Washington Times, 03-24-09

Impermissible Ratemaking in Health-Insurance Reform: Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional Point of Law, 12-18-09

Reform Proposals

Impermissible Ratemaking in Health-Insurance Reform: Why the Reid Bill is Unconstitutional Point of Law, 12-18-09

Regulation

Managed Care Liability Civil Justice Memo/Forum, Sept 2000

Taxes and Budget

Is the Bonus Tax Unconstitutional? Wall Street Journal, 03-26-09

Unions

A Labor Dilemma For President Bam New York Post, 10-21-08

Value of Medicine

Causing More Harm than Good: Conflict-of-Interest Rules Thwart Medical Progress Forbes.com, 10-26-10

Books

• Cases and Materials on Torts (Aspen Publishers 9th ed., work in progress)
• Supreme Neglect: How To Revive The Constitutional Protection for Private Property (Oxford University Press, forthcoming)
• Antitrust Consent Decrees In Theory and Practice: Why Less is More (American Enterprise Institute, 2007)
• Overdose: How Excessive Government Regulation Stifles Pharmaceutical Innovation (Yale University Press, 2006)
• Cases and Materials on Torts (Aspen Publishing 8th ed., 2004)
• Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism (University of Chicago Press, 2003)
• Torts (Aspen Law and Business, 1999)
• Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good (Perseus Books, 1998)
• Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Rights to Health Care (Addison-Wesley, 1997)

Chapters

• "ProCD v. Zeidenberg: Do Doctrine and Function Mix?," in Contract Stories (Foundation Press, 2007)
• "The Optimal Complexity of Legal Rules," in Heuristics and the Law (MIT Press, 2006)
• "Weak and Strong Conceptions of Property: An Essay in Memory of Jim Harris," in Properties of Law: Essays in Honour of Jim Harris (Timothy Endicott, Joshua Getzler and Edwin Peel, eds., Oxford University Press, 2006)
• "Second-Order Rationality," in Behavioral Public Finance (E. J. McCaffrey and Joel Slemrod, ed., Russell Sage Foundaion , 2006)
• "The Optimal Complexity of Legal Rules," in Heuristics and the Law (C. Engel and G. Gigerenzer, ed., MIT Press, 2006)