Eric W. Orts

Current research focuses on several projects: a paper sketching a normative theory of the firm following up my book on Business Persons; a manuscript on my recent run for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania; and a short essay on recent decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court that throw its legitimacy into serious question.

• Brian Berkey and Eric W. Orts (2021), The Climate Imperative for Business, California Management Review (Insights/Frontier).
• Eric W. Orts (2020), Senate Democracy: Our Lockean Paradox, . Abstract

  The United States Senate is radically unrepresentative. American citizens in populous states such as California, Texas, Florida, and New York have much less voting weight than citizens in lightly populated states. Senate representation is also significantly biased in terms of race, ethnicity, and color, as well as other constitutionally protected characteristics such as age and sex. Effective reform of Senate, however, presents a Lockean paradox because amendment of the Senate’s representational structure is prohibited by Article V of the Constitution, and the amendment of Article V is itself blocked by impossible supermajority hurdles.
  This Article proposes a Senate Reform Act to solve this paradox. The reform would adjust the number of senators allocated to each state by relative population. It recommends a Rule of One Hundred to determine population units by which to allocate senate seats according the official decennial census, with a minimum of one senator per state. The reform would thus respect the principle of federalism and maintain the Senate at roughly the same size. It would yield structural co-benefits such as a more representative Electoral College and an easier path to statehood for underrepresented citizens in the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere.
  The proposed Senate Reform Act finds its constitutional authority in the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Fourth, and Twenty-Sixth Amendments, collectively the voting-rights amendments. After explaining how the reform would work, this Article defends its constitutionality through traditionally recognized modes of interpretation: textual analysis, structural considerations, historical context, moral principles, and legal precedents. It concludes with an examination of political balance and feasibility.

• Eric W. Orts (2020), Collective Goods and the Court: A Theory of Constitutional Commodificaiton (with Amy Sepinwall), . Abstract

  Not everything is or should be for sale. Collective goods such as our democracy and parts of our natural environment would be destroyed if they were transformed into commodities to be bought and sold in commercial markets.

  This Article examines a discrete and unexplored topic within the larger literature on commodification: the extent to which the U.S. Supreme Court participates in the commodification of collective goods. The Court shifts market boundaries, we argue, through interpretations of the Constitution that glorify commodities and exalt individual rights at the expense of collective goods in which we all share.

  Examining two lines of cases holding that “money is speech” and “waste is commerce,” the Article contributes to theoretical understanding of the nature of collective goods and their commodification through interpretation of the Constitution, and makes recommendations for how the Court and our larger society should address these issues in the future.

• Brian Berkey and Eric W. Orts (2019), Review of Ryan Burg, Business Ethics for a Material World, Business Ethics Quarterly, 29 (1), pp. 143-146. 10.1017/beq.2018.39
• Eric W. Orts (2017), Corporate Law and Business Theory, .
• Sarah E. Light and Eric W. Orts, “Public and Private Procurement in Environmental Governance”. In Policy Instruments in Environmental Law, edited by Ken Richards & Josephine van Zeben (Edward Elgar, forthcoming), (:, 2017)
• Eric W. Orts and N. Craig Smith, The Moral Responsibility of Firms (: Oxford University Press, 2017)
• Eric W. Orts (2016), Theorizing the Firm: Organizational Ontology in the Supreme Court, DePaul Law Review, 65 (2). Related
  Links
• Sarah E. Light and Eric W. Orts (2015), Parallels in Public and Private Environmental Governance, Michigan Journal of Environmental and Administrative Law, 5 (), p. 1.
• Eric W. Orts and Amy Sepinwall (2015), Privacy and Organizational Persons, University of Minnesota Law Review, 99 (6).
• All Research from Eric W. Orts »

Current MBA elective core course: Business, Social Responsibility, and the Environment.

Previous Ph.D. courses: Foundations of Business Law; Theories of the Business Enterprise.

Previous undergraduate course: Business, Law, and Democracy [Paideia program]

Previous undergraduate/MBA courses:  Introduction to Law (honors); Environmental Management: Law and Policy.

Current Courses

• LGST6130 - Business, Social Responsibility, And The Environment

  This half-credit (.5 cu) course presents students with the opportunity to explore an alternative perspective to what some might consider the traditional or standard model of business. A starting point of the course is to ask whether business firms owe a “social responsibility” that includes, but goes beyond, maximizing profits. The course begins with overarching questions including to whom a business firm owes legal and ethical duties, how to balance or trade-off obligations owed to different stakeholders when they may conflict, and how to consider the distributional and other socially important implications of business decisions. Different sections of this course will examine questions about the responsibility of business toward a number of pressing environmental and social issues, including for example, climate change, fresh water availability, green marketing claims, democratic values, racial and gender diversity, human rights, poverty reduction, and global health issues such as access to medicine. These topics will be treated primarily through the lenses of law and ethics. Please consult individual instructors’ syllabi in the Wharton syllabus repository for further details on what will be covered in each individual section, and please note that topics change over time and in response to student and faculty interests. Finally, students should expect to prepare and present in groups to colleagues in classes on selected issues of business responsibility. This course fulfills the MBA Flex Core requirement in Legal Studies and Business Ethics.

  LGST6130001 ( Syllabus )

  LGST6130002 ( Syllabus )

  LGST6130003 ( Syllabus )

  LGST6130004 ( Syllabus )

Past Courses

• LGST2020 - Law of Corp Mgmt & Fnce

  This course provides an introduction to the law of corporate management and finance. The course covers the roles of directors and managers under state corporate law and the federal securities laws. It also considers the rights and responsibilities of other major stakeholders including shareholders, creditors, and employees. Particular attention is given to the law of mergers and acquisitions. Focus in on public corporations, but application of the law to venture firms is also discussed. Alternative organizational forms , such as LLCs, partnerships, and DAOs, are considered. Format: Socratic conversation and some lecture.

• LGST2150 - Envt'l Mgmt Law & Pol

  This course provides an introduction to environmental management by focusing on foundational concepts of environmental law and policy and how they affect business decisions. The primary aim of the course is to give students a deeper practical sense of the important relationship between business and the natural environment, the existing legal and policy framework of environmental protection, and how business managers can think about managing their relationship with both the environment and the law.

• LGST2450 - Bus, Law, & Democracy

  What is the relationship between business and democracy? Do institutions of free enterprise depend on democratic government-and vice versa? Do more democratic decision-making structure enhance efficient outcomes? What priniciples inform shareholder democracy? What is the relationship of business, democracy, and the rule of law? This course explores various dimensions of the relationship between business and democracy. Particular attention is given to legal structures that govern the relationship, but ethical considerations are examined as well.

• LGST2990 - Seminar in Law & Society

  A study of the nature, functions, and limits of law as an agency of societal policy. Each semester an area of substantive law is studied for the purpose of examining the relationship between legal norms developed and developing in the area and societal problems and needs. Please see department for current offerings.

• LGST6120 - Responsibility in Bus.

  This course introduces students to important ethical and legal challenges they will face as leaders in business. The course materials will be useful to students preparing for managerial positions that are likely to place them in advisory and/or agency roles owing duties to employers, clients, suppliers, and customers. Although coverage will vary depending on instructor, the focus of the course will be on developing skills in ethical and legal analyses that can assist managers as they make both individual-level and firm-level decisions about the responsible courses of action when duties, loyalties, rules, norms, and interests are in conflict. For example, the rules of insider trading may form the basis for lessons in some sections. Group assignments, role-plays, and case studies may, at the instructor's discretion, be used to help illustrate the basic theoretical frameworks. Course materials will highlight industry codes and professional norms, as well as the importance of personal and/or religious values.

• LGST6130 - Bus, Soc Resp&Environmt

  This half-credit (.5 cu) course presents students with the opportunity to explore an alternative perspective to what some might consider the traditional or standard model of business. A starting point of the course is to ask whether business firms owe a “social responsibility” that includes, but goes beyond, maximizing profits. The course begins with overarching questions including to whom a business firm owes legal and ethical duties, how to balance or trade-off obligations owed to different stakeholders when they may conflict, and how to consider the distributional and other socially important implications of business decisions. Different sections of this course will examine questions about the responsibility of business toward a number of pressing environmental and social issues, including for example, climate change, fresh water availability, green marketing claims, democratic values, racial and gender diversity, human rights, poverty reduction, and global health issues such as access to medicine. These topics will be treated primarily through the lenses of law and ethics. Please consult individual instructors’ syllabi in the Wharton syllabus repository for further details on what will be covered in each individual section, and please note that topics change over time and in response to student and faculty interests. Finally, students should expect to prepare and present in groups to colleagues in classes on selected issues of business responsibility. This course fulfills the MBA Flex Core requirement in Legal Studies and Business Ethics.

• LGST7990 - Seminar in Law & Society

  A study of the nature, functions, and limits of law as an agency of societal policy. Each semester an area of substantive law is studied for the purpose of examining the relationship between legal norms developed and developing in the area and societal problems and needs.

• LGST8020 - Global Corp Law & Mgmt

  This course provides an introduction to the law of corporate management and finance. The course covers the roles of directors and managers under state corporate law and the federal securities laws. It also considers the rights and responsibilities of other major stakeholders, including shareholders, creditors, and employees. Particular attention is given to the law of mergers and acquisitions. Focus is on public corporations, but application of the law to venture firms is also discussed. Alternative organizational forms, such as LLCs, partnerships, and DAOs, are considered. Format: Socratic conversation and some lecture.

• LGST8150 - Envt'l Mgmt Law & Pol

  This course provides an introduction to environmental management with a focus on law and policy as a basic framework. The primary aim of the course is to give students a deeper practical sense of the important relationship between business and the natural environment and to think critically about how best to manage this relationship.

• LGST9410 - Business Enterprise

  What is a business firm? How did various forms of business, including the corporation, arise historically? How do contemporary economic and financial theories explain how business firms evolve, grow, and die? What are the legal underpinnings of the forms of business enterprise, ranging from sole proprietorships to partnerships to family-owned enterprises to multinational corporate groups? How do business firms relate to politics and government, as well as religion? What about the environment? This interdisciplinary course offers an introduction to pursuing answers to these questions. Students will gain perspective on the nature of business enterprises from different points of view that will be useful in further research, as well as having practical application. Ubiquitous economic concepts such as agency costs, principal-agent relationships, transaction costs, and influence costs will be studied. Different legal structures of firms will also be introduced, including new hybrid organizations such as benefit corporations, which seek to meld non-profit and profit objectives. In the course, we will read high-profile U.S. Supreme Court cases such as Citizens United and Hobby Lobby and debate appropriate boundaries (or not) between business and politics, as well as business and religion. Business ethics and the nature of any social responsibilities owed by business and business people will be topics too.

• MBA Excellence in Teaching Award, 2021
• Excellence in Teaching Award for MBA Elective Course, 2011

• Letter to the Editor: Will Merrick Garland Prosecute Trump? Should He?, The New York Times - 06/23/2022
• The ALI’s Restatement of the Corporate Objective Is Flawed, The CLS Blue Sky Blog - 06/06/2022
• Letter to the Editor: A World Moving Toward Autocracy, The New York Times - 02/26/2022
• Should the House Move To Impeach Trump?, New York Times - 11/15/2018 Description

  Letter to the editor

• College students are flocking to sustainability degrees, careers, USA Today - 08/02/2009
• Letter to the Editor: "Green" Companies: The Next Step, New York Times - 01/15/2000
• Letter to the Editor: Drive a Range Rover?: Time to Pay Up, New York Times - 06/11/1997

Knowledge @ Wharton

• How Will the Workplace Change in 2025?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 01/14/2025
• Can AI Predict the Future?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 01/14/2025
• Why Some Societies Are More Entrepreneurial, Knowledge @ Wharton - 01/14/2025
• The Workplace Has Seen Drastic Changes — What’s in Store for 2025?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 01/14/2025
• Confidence in Cryptocurrency | David Reibstein and John Zhang (Part 2), Knowledge @ Wharton - 01/14/2025
• College Football Playoffs with Bill Connelly, Knowledge @ Wharton - 01/08/2025
• The Real Estate Market Survived Until 2025. What’s Next?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 01/07/2025
• AI in 2025: What Challenges Lie Ahead?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 01/07/2025
• Jeremy Siegel: 2025 Outlook for Stocks and the Economy, Knowledge @ Wharton - 01/07/2025
• What’s Ahead for Real Estate in 2025?, Knowledge @ Wharton - 01/07/2025