Consumer Protection - LAW 628

3 Hours

Since nearly everything in our society is distributed via consumer markets, consumer protection law is a huge field. Rather than attempting a comprehensive outline of the whole field or a detailed account of a few select statutory schemes, this course introduces some basic principles, techniques, and debates that are common across the various areas of law that regulate consumer-facing business conduct. The hope is to give students the information and skills necessary to begin to ask their own questions about how consumer markets should be governed. Overarching questions include: How can the law ensure that consumers are well informed? How can it correct for persistent power imbalances between firms and consumers? How can it ensure that products and services are of a certain quality? How can it correct for systemic inequalities to promote equal treatment of different consumers? In exploring these questions, the course will touch on everything from state products liability law to federal food and drug approval processes, from emerging issues in data governance to recent efforts to use consumer protection law to protect workers, from telecommunications law and its relationship to the First Amendment to public accommodations law and its relationship to religious freedom.



All Course Syllabi Available Here