Prescriptive Formality and Normative Rationality in Modern Legal Systems

Robert S. Summers is the William G. McRoberts Professor of Research in the Administration of the Law at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. During a long and distinguished academic career, he has won an international reputation for his work in legal theory and in contract and commercial law. He has published widely in all three fields, and has taught and lectured throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. In 1990, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Helsinki, in 1994, by the University of Göttingen. Over the past few years, Summers has turned his attention to a general theory of the nature, varieties, and significance of form and formality in modern legal systems. This Festschrift, in celebration of Robert S. Summers on his sixtieth birthday, contains contributions from 44 friends and colleagues from a dozen different countries.