Rachel Leow (London School of Economics – Law School) has posted Agency in the Law: Definitions, Concepts, and Complications (Theory of Agency Relationships, Andrew Gold, Paul Miller & Deborah DeMott eds., forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
What do we mean when we talk about agency? The answer depends on one’s discipline. Agency has different meanings and normative significance in law, morality, politics, economics, and other disciplines. It might be thought, as the brief for this conference suggested, that ‘For legal settings, such relationships have a widely accepted meaning.’, though ‘[b]eyond law, agency is more loosely defined’.
My aim in this chapter is three-fold. The first aim is to first complicate this relatively optimistic account of agency in the law. Agency in the law may have a more widely accepted meaning than in other fields, but it is not all that stable either. Existing definitions are insufficiently precise, and there are many problem cases that do not neatly fit the definitions. Having complicated the relatively optimistic account, the second aim of the paper is then to show how the idea of legal agency can be rescued. I argue that it is still possible to rescue agency and present a coherent and normatively attractive definition of agency in the law by focusing on what I call the agent’s ‘proxy power’.
The third aim of this chapter is a background one running through the entire chapter. It is to illuminate the distinctive approach and background assumptions of those working in the law, including judges, legal scholars, and practicing lawyers. I hope to explain and illuminate why those working in the law may adopt definitions of agency that may not be shared by those working in other disciplines. This is because in law, agency is a unique legal relationship distinct from other legal relationships, with its own legal incidents. To say, or conclude, that a relationship is one of agency is to say something important about the legal rights, duties, powers, and responsibilities both between the parties in the agency relationship as well as to others outside the agency relationship.
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