Pocket Part on Property and Federalism

The Pocket Part is a new on-line feature of The Yale Law Journal:

As members of the legal community know, legal publications often contain "pocket part" supplements with up-to-date information and commentary. The Pocket Part plays an analogous role. It features op-ed length versions of Journal articles and responses from leading practitioners, policymakers, and scholars. The Pocket Part also serves as a forum for our readers and authors to discuss legal scholarship.

Abraham Bell and Gideon Parchomovsky currently have a post up on The Pocket Part on their recent article Of Property and Federalism.  Here's an excerpt:

We suggest expanding owners’ flexibility by using a registry system similar to that used in corporate law. Property owners should be allowed to choose the state property law that will apply to any given asset, but will be required to register the fact in a publicly available registry. A California couple—or a couple from any other state for that matter—should be able to buy a car in New York and register that car as community property under California law, even if they never plan on returning west.

Under our proposed regime, whenever a new property right is created or acquired, the parties may choose to define the property right according to the full menu of property laws available throughout the country.

There are also comments by Robert Ellickson and Stephen Williams, and some interesting comments on the discussion board.

Ben Barros