Four faculty members from WashU Law participated in the 2026 annual meeting of the American Law and Economics Association (ALEA), held May 15–16 at University of Chicago Law School. The conference brought together leading scholars, practitioners, and judges to present new research examining the intersection of law, public policy, economics, and regulation.
Professors Jonathan Choi, Jens Frankenreiter, James Hicks, and Andrew Tuch presented innovative scholarship at the conference, while Professor Peter Joy co-authored a paper that was presented by Adam Chilton, Dean of University of Chicago Law School.
Choi presented “Prose and Cons: Evaluating the Legality of Police Stops with Large Language Models,” which he co-authored with David Abrams, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Their paper explores how artificial intelligence can be used to assess the legality of police stops at scale. Using more than 41,000 attorney-coded police stop narratives, the research demonstrates that fine-tuned large language models can identify illegal stops with more than 90% accuracy. The paper also uses the models to analyze broader policing trends, including disparities affecting Black and male suspects, highlighting the potential for AI tools to support legal analysis and social science research.
Frankenreiter presented “The Rise of the Horse-Choker: The Complexification of Advance Notice Bylaws,” an empirical study examining how corporate advance notice bylaws have evolved over the last two decades. Drawing on AI analysis of thousands of corporate bylaws from 2000 to 2024, the paper documents how these provisions have become increasingly lengthy and complex, reshaping shareholder governance practices and contributing new insights to debates surrounding corporate power and managerial entrenchment.
Hicks presented “What’s a Patent Term Extension Worth?” co-authored with Neel Sukhatme, University of Michigan Law School, which investigates the economic value of patent protection following changes implemented through the 1994 TRIPS Agreement. Using an event-study approach, the research finds that retroactive patent term extensions generated measurable increases in market capitalization for affected firms, while also revealing significant differences across industries in how companies value additional patent exclusivity.
Tuch presented “Lend Me Your Counsel,” co-authored with Cathy Hwang, University of Virginia Law School. The paper examines the widespread but underexplored practice of borrower-designated lenders’ counsel in leveraged lending transactions. It analyzes how private equity firms select and pay the legal counsel for their lenders in major financing deals, a practice that supports trillions of dollars in transaction volume. Drawing on practitioner literature and original interviews, the research explores the incentives, norms, and ethical considerations shaping this influential area of transactional practice.
Joy co-authored “The Evolution of Experiential Legal Education” with Adam Chilton, Erik Hovenkamp, and Kyle Rozema. The paper examines the development and impact of experiential learning requirements in legal education. It analyzes the American Bar Association’s 2014 mandate requiring law students to complete at least six credits of experiential coursework and evaluates its effects on law schools and student outcomes. While documenting a substantial increase in experiential offerings, the study finds no evidence that the reform improved employment outcomes, raised tuition, or reduced bar passage rates. Using transcript-level data, the authors further show that expanded clinical opportunities primarily reached students less likely to benefit from them, without displacing students most likely to do so.
WashU Law congratulates Professors Choi, Frankenreiter, Hicks, Tuch, and Joy on their contributions to this year’s ALEA meeting and their continued scholarly impact.
