The Fiduciary Obligation

A Theory of Fiduciary Liability – McGill Law Journal / Revue de droit de McGill – Érudit

An article from McGill Law Journal / Revue de droit de McGill, on Érudit.

The Critical Resource Theory of Fiduciary Duty

This Article proposes a new theory to unify the law of fiduciary duty. The prevailing view holds that fiduciary law is atomistic, arising for varied reasons in

Consumption, Debt, and Portfolio Choice: Testing the Effects of Bankruptcy Law

In the United States, consumer bankruptcy (Chapter 7 and Chapter 13) is designed to provide debtors a fresh start. Broadly speaking, after a household successfully files a bankruptcy petition, its unsecured debts are erased, but it must forfeit any assets above an exemption level determined by law. Laws regulating bankruptcy are a complex mix of state and federal rules. While the specific legal details are beyond the scope of this essay, in general, state laws set the exemption levels above which households forfeit assets; these range from exemptions as low as $75 to more than $100,000 (or, indeed, potentially unlimited levels).1

Mississippi public defenders could curb incarcerations - Mississippi Today

What Mississippi needs is a state-level public defender mandate establishing clear, enforceable standards that apply in every jurisdiction: standards for compensation and expenses, for workload, for when counsel first meets a client, for continuity of representation through all stages of a case.

Archival Selves

What happens when you pay off all your intention debts?

Adequate indigent defense should be a top priority

This past weekend, I published a story for The Commonwealth assessing Mississippi’s 23 circuit court districts’ indigent defense plans — that is how each of those courts provides lawyers to indigent, or poor, criminal defendants charged with a felony who can’t afford their own counsel.

Mississippi Courts Won’t Say How They Provide Lawyers for Poor Clients

Six years ago, the Mississippi Supreme Court told judges around the state to file plans showing how they meet their obligations to poor defendants. So far, only one has.

Radical Skepticism About Information Fiduciaries

Khan and Pozen are right to note the fundamental conflict between “information fiduciary” duties and shareholder interests. I only wish to add two further points in service of a radical skepticism towards the information fiduciary concept.

State of the Personal Insolvency System 2024-25

This report complements our annual report by providing a mid-year snapshot of the personal insolvency system administered by AFSA under the Bankruptcy Act 1966.

FinCEN Permanently Ends Beneficial Ownership Reporting Requirements for Millions of Small Business Owners

Will Delete Information Previously Reported by U.S. PersonsWASHINGTON––Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) is issuing a final rule that permanently removes the requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons to report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN under the Corporate Transparency Act.  The final rule is effective on its publication in the Federal Register. FinCEN today also announced that it will delete previously reported information by U.S. persons—now exempt from the reporting requirements—from the beneficial ownership information database. “Today’s action is a victory for common sense and American small businesses,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “President Trump promised to cut red tape, and this final rule delivers. Treasury is eliminating a burdensome reporting requirement for millions of law-abiding business owners without compromising our national security.” The final rule:adopts the exemptions set out in the interim final rule issued in March 2025, making the rollback of beneficial ownership reporting by U.S. companies permanent;exempts U.S. persons who have obtained FinCEN IDs from any obligation to update or correct the information they originally provided to FinCEN to obtain their FinCEN IDs;eliminates the requirement for foreign companies to report U.S. person “company applicants” (i.e., the individuals who helped those foreign companies register to do business in the United States);exempts foreign pooled investment vehicles registered in the United States from reporting the beneficial ownership information of a U.S person in control of the investment vehicle; andconfirms that FinCEN will delete information about any individuals—company applicants, beneficial owners, or recipients of a FinCEN ID—that FinCEN reasonably believes is a U.S. person (e.g., the information is linked to a U.S. passport or U.S. driver’s license).Under the final rule, foreign entities that are reporting companies will still be required to report beneficial ownership information for foreign individuals. In addition to the final rule, FinCEN has issued Frequently Asked Questions, and will be updating guidance on FinCEN.gov to reflect the final rule. ###

Moral Incentives in Credit Card Debt Repayment: Evidence from a Field Experiment

We study the role of morality in debt repayment, using an experiment with the credit card customers of a large Islamic bank in Indonesia. In our main treatment, clients receive a text message stating that “non-repayment of debts by someone who is able to repay is an injustice.” This moral appeal decreases delinquency by 4.4 percentage points from a baseline of 66 percent and reduces default among customers with the highest ex ante credit risk. Additional treatments help benchmark the effects against direct financial incentives and rule out competing explanations, such as reminder effects, priming religion, and provision of new information.

All 12 Tips for Concision | LEGIBLE

Since July 2015 I’ve been sporadically posting a series of tips for concision in legal writing. I suggested a total of twelve, and links to all of them are collected here:

Chapter Eight—Technology and the Law: The Automobile · University of Wisconsin Law School Digital Repository · University of Wisconsin Law School Digital Repository

University of Wisconsin Law School Law Library 975 Bascom Mall Madison, WI 53706 608-262-3394

Mississippi public defender system varies widely by county, court plans show

In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that the Sixth Amendment requires states to provide lawyers to criminal defendants who cannot afford one. Mississippi delegates that responsibility to counties, a system civil rights attorneys say is inconsistent and ineffective.

Social Norms

Social norms, the informal rules that govern behavior in groups andsocieties, have been extensively studied in the social sciences.Anthropologists have described how social norms function in differentcultures (Geertz 1973), sociologists have focused on their socialfunctions and how they motivate people to act (Durkheim 1895 [1982],1950 [1957]; Parsons 1937; Parsons & Shils 1951; James Coleman1990; Hechter & Opp 2001), and economists have explored howadherence to norms influences market behavior (Akerlof 1976; Young1998a). More recently, also legal scholars have touted social norms asefficient alternatives to legal rules, as they may internalizenegative externalities and provide signaling mechanisms at little orno cost (Ellickson 1991; Posner 2000).

Many Mississippi Courts Unprepared to Give All Poor Defendants Lawyers

A rule requiring poor criminal defendants to have a lawyer throughout the criminal process took effect Saturday.