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John H. Langbein | |
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| Born | November 17, 1941 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | Columbia University (BA) Harvard University (LLB) Trinity Hall, Cambridge (LLB, PhD) |
John Harriss Langbein (born 1941) is an American legal scholar who serves as the Sterling Professor emeritus of Law and Legal History at Yale University. He is an expert in the fields of trusts and estates, comparative law, and Anglo-American legal history.
Langbein was born in 1941 in Washington, D.C. He studied economics at Columbia University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1964. He then attended the Harvard Law School, graduating in 1968 with a LL.B. magna cum laude . He then studied law at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, receiving a second LLB in 1969 (a graduate law degree at the time, which Cambridge renamed the LLM in 1982) and a Ph.D. in 1971. His Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, "The Criminal Process in the Renaissance," was awarded the Yorke Prize. He also received an honorary M.A. degree in 1990 from Yale University.
In 1971, Langbein joined the University of Chicago Law School as an assistant professor of law, eventually holding the position of Max Pam Professor of American and Foreign Law. In 1990, Langbein joined the faculty of the Yale Law School, where he eventually became a Sterling Professor, the highest-ranking appointment at Yale University. He retired in 2015.
In the field of trusts and estates, Langbein is known for his scholarship advocating greater flexibility in the application of the Wills Act formalities, work which led to the adoption of the "harmless error" standard in the Uniform Probate Code. He has also called attention to the trend whereby human capital has replaced physical capital as the dominant form of wealth transmitted from parent to child. [1] In the fields of comparative law and legal history, he is best known for his critique of the common-law jury and adversarial procedure, which he considers inferior to the Continental alternatives, especially the German system. [2]
Langbein is the author of numerous books and articles. He has focused in particular on the history of criminal procedure, comparing the Anglo-American tradition to that of the European Continent. His article, "The Prosecutorial Origins of Defence Counsel in the Eighteenth Century: The Appearance of Solicitors," was awarded the Sutherland Prize by the American Society for Legal History in 2000. He is also a coauthor of the leading casebook on American pension law, Pension & Employee Benefit Law (4th ed. 2006).
Langbein has long been active in law reform. He has served as an Associate Reporter for the Restatement of Property (Third): Wills and Other Donative Transfers, and is an adviser to the Restatement (Third) of Trusts. He is also a Commissioner of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and has served on the drafting committees for several uniform acts, including the Uniform Prudent Investor Act (1994), for which he was the Reporter.
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A trust is a legal relationship in which the holder of a right gives it to another person or entity who must keep and use it solely for another's benefit. In the Anglo-American common law, the party who entrusts the right is known as the "settlor", the party to whom the right is entrusted is known as the "trustee", the party for whose benefit the property is entrusted is known as the "beneficiary", and the entrusted property itself is known as the "corpus" or "trust property". A testamentary trust is created by a will and arises after the death of the settlor. An inter vivos trust is created during the settlor's lifetime by a trust instrument. A trust may be revocable or irrevocable; an irrevocable trust can be "broken" (revoked) only by a judicial proceeding.
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Robert H. Sitkoff is the Austin Wakeman Scott Professor of Law and the John L. Gray Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he specializes in trusts and estates. He previously served as professor of law at New York University School of Law and Northwestern University School of Law.
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Harries v The Church Commissioners for England [1992] 1 WLR 1241 is an English trusts law case, concerning the possibility to invest ethically. It tempers the decision in Cowan v Scargill to show that trustees can make investments, guided by ethical considerations, if it can be shown that overall financial performance would not be harmed, but also if it would be consistent with the purpose of the trust.
Cowan v Scargill [1985] Ch 270 is an English trusts law case, concerning the scope of discretion of trustees to make investments for the benefit of their members. It held that trustees cannot ignore the financial interests of the beneficiaries.
The Uniform Trust Code is a model law in the United States, which although not binding, is influential in the states, and used by many as a model law. As of January 1, 2020, 34 States have enacted a version of the Uniform Trust Code. Legislation has currently been proposed in New York to adopt the UTC.
Langbein is a surname of German origin, meaning "long leg", and may refer to:
Mirjan Damaška is an American and Croatian jurist and legal scholar, known for his works in the sphere of comparative criminal justice and international criminal law. He was a professor at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb, where he was an acting dean in 1970. He is currently a Sterling Professor emeritus at the Yale Law School, where he has taught since 1976.
