Private law is the invisible plumbing of society. As societies transform and new challenges emerge, there is growing concern about the nature of the values underpinning private law, and whether those values and the interests they prioritise and defend are the right ones to further the needs of society.
The Private Law and Values group at York Law School works to develop new methodologies to better understand and model the values implicit in private law; trace how private law has responded to social challenges at different points of time in its history; and develop the framework for a new and more socially grounded jurisprudence of private law. It includes research on contract, tort, property, trusts, commercial and corporate law, financial regulation, and intellectual property. Researchers draw on historical, doctrinal, and theoretical approaches to understand how legal rules evolve and how they shape economic and social life.
Project spotlights
Our projects focus on private and commercial law, markets, property systems, financial regulation, legal history, and theoretical foundations.
