James Steven Rogers, Professor of Law, received his A.B. summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, 1973, and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, 1976. He has taught commercial law, contracts, bankruptcy, corporations, restitution, and constitutional law. He is the author of various works on modern commercial law and bankruptcy, particularly in the field of negotiable instruments law and concepts, and several articles and a book on the history of Anglo-American commercial law of bills and notes.

Professor Rogers has participated in recent projects to revise the American Uniform Commercial Code. Professor Rogers served as Reporter (principal drafter) for the Drafting Committee to Revise UCC Article 8, which establishes a new framework for the analysis of securities holdings through central depositories and other intermediaries. He was also involved in the project on negotiable instruments (UCC Articles 3 and 4) and the project on secured transactions (UCC Articles 9). He has spoken at numerous conferences and programs, in the United States and abroad, on the modernization of the commercial law foundation of the securities clearance and settlement system.

Professor Rogers' has recently worked on various projects focused on efforts toward harmonization of international law and choice of law principles with respect to the complex modern system of securities holding through central securities depositories and other intermediaries. He served as a United States Delegate (appointed by U.S. Department of State) to the Hague Conference on Private International Law on a project to negotiate and draft Convention on Choice of Law for Securities Holding Through Securities Intermediaries, and he also served as a member of Drafting Group for that Convention.

Professor Rogers’ most recent work has focused on the modern law of payment systems and the role of history in the development of that law.

EDUCATION

A.B., University of Pennsylvania; J.D., Harvard University.

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Activities: Presented a paper on “Modernization and Harmonization of Securities Transfer and Custody Law” at the University of Amsterdam Centre for the Study of European Contract Law in 2007. Presented a paper on “The Revision of Canadian Law on Securities Holding Through Intermediaries” at the 36th Annual Workshop on Commercial and Consumer Law in Banff, Alberta, Canada, 2006. Presented a paper on “Property and Contract:  Toward a Clearer Understanding of the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Certain Rights in Respect of Securities” at Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan, 2004. Presented paper on “Reflections on the Revision of Article 8 of the United States Uniform Commercial Code.” at China Securities Depository, Beijing, China, 2003.

Presentations: “Property and Contract: Towards a Clearer Understanding of the Hague Convention on the Law Applicable to Certain Rights in Respect to Securities,” at the Hague Convention Conference on Indirectly Held Securities, Tokyo, Japan, in October 2004.

Appointments: Appointed by the US Department of State as a member of the delegation to The Hague Conference on Private International Law project to negotiate and draft a convention on choice of law for securities holding through securities intermediaries. In this capacity, he attended the meeting of experts at The Hague in January, and has been appointed a member of the drafting group for the convention by the general secretary of the Permanent Bureau of The Hague Conference.

COURSES

Fall '09: Commercial Law: Payment Systems; Contracts
Spring '10: Commercial Law: Secured Transactions; Commercial Law: Securities

• "Unification of Payments Law and the Problem of Insolvency Risk in Payment Systems." Chicago-Kent Law Review 83 (2008): 689-720.
• "The Revision of Canadian Law on Securities Holdings Through Intermediaries: Who, What, When, Where, How, and Why?" Canadian Business Law Journal 45 (2007): 49-66.
• "Restitution for Wrongs and the Restatement (Third) of the Law of Restitution." Wake Forest Law Review 42 (Spring 2007): 55-91
• “Conflict of Laws for Transactions in Securities Held Through Intermediaries.” Cornell International Law Journal 39 (Spring 2006): 285-328.
• "The New Old Law of Electronic Money." SMU Law Review 58: no.4 (Fall 2005):. 1253-1311.
• "The Basic Principle of Loss Allocation for Unauthorized Checks." Wake Forest Law Review 39 (Summer 2004): 453-509.
• Review of Industrializing English Law: Entrepreneurship and Business Organization, 1720-1844, by Ron Harris. American Journal of Legal History 44 (July 2000): 314-316.
• With Randall Guynn. "United States (New York.)." In Cross Border Collateral: Legal Risk and the Conflict of Law, general editor, Richard Potok, 603-614. London: Butterworths, 2002.
• "Legal Risk in the Securities Settlement System." In Current Developments in Monetary and Financial Law, vol.1 (papers based on a seminar held in 1998, organized by the Legal Department of the IMF and the IMF Institute), 263-270. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund, 1999.
• "Of Normalcy and Anomaly: Thoughts on Choice of Law for the Indirect Holding System." In The Oxford Colloquium on Collateral and Conflict of Laws, held at St. John's College, Oxford University , May 1, 1998. (A special supplement to Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law 13 (September 1998): 47-51.)
• "Policy Perspectives on Revised U.C.C. Article 8." UCLA Law Review 43 (June 1996): 1432-1503.
• With William D. Hawkland. Revised Article 8: Investment Securities, Uniform Commercial Code Series, vol. 7A. Deerfield: Clark, Boardman, Callaghan, 1996.
• "Sobre los Orígenes del Moderno Derecho Inglés de Sociedades." In Del Ius Mercatorum al Derecho Mercantil, edited by Carlos Petit, 307-332. Madrid: Marcial Pons, 1997.
• The Early History of the Law of Bills and Notes: A Study of the Origins of Anglo-American Commercial Law. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1995.
• "An Essay on Horseless Carriages and Paperless Negotiable Instruments: Some Lessons from the Article 8 Revision." Idaho Law Review 31 (1995): 689-98.
• "Revised UCC Article 8: Why It's Needed, What It Does." UCC Bulletin (December 1994): 1-5.
• "Beyond G30: Update: A New Approach to the Commercial Law of Securities Holding Through Intermediaries: The Proposed Revisions of Article 8 of the United States Uniform Commercial Code." Euroclear Review (September 1994). [Also appears in Securities Operations Letter, November 14, 1994: 3, 6, 7.]
• "Behind the Article 8 Ball: The Law Plays Catch-up with Indirect Securities Holding." Business Law Today 3 (January/February 1994): 44-49.
• "The Problem of Accommodation Bills: Banking Theory and the Law of Bills and Notes in the Early Nineteenth Century." In The Growth of the Bank as Institution and the Development of Money-Business Law, edited by Vito Piergiovanni, 119-155. Comparative Studies in Continental and Anglo-American Legal History, Band 12. Berlin: Duncker & Humboldt, 1993.
• "UCC Article 8 - Investment Securities: The Need for Revision to Accommodate Securities Holding Through Financial Intermediaries." In Commercial Law Annual 1993, edited by Louis Del Duca and Patrick Del Duca, 419-452. Deerfield, IL: Clark Boardman Callaghan, 1993.
• "An Overview of the Current Project to Revise UCC Article 8." UCC Bulletin (May 1992): 1-5.
• "Negotiability, Property, and Identity." Cardozo Law Review 12 (December 1990): 471-508.
• "The Myth of Negotiability." Boston College Law Review 31 (March 1990): 265-333.
• "The Irrelevance of Negotiable Instruments Concepts in the Law of the Check-Based Payment System." Texas Law Review 65 (April 1987): 929-961.
• "Negotiability as a System of Title Recognition." Ohio State Law Journal 48 (Winter 1987): 197-224.
• "The Impairment of Secured Creditors' Rights in Reorganization: A Study of the Relationship Between the Fifth Amendment and the Bankruptcy Clause." Harvard Law Review 96 (March 1983): 973-1031.
• "Contracts and Commercial Law." Annual Survey of Massachusetts Law 28 (1981): 1-40.
• "Contracts and Commercial Law." Annual Survey of Massachusetts Law 27 (1980): 69-111.
• "Note: Last Hired, First Fired Layoffs and Title VII." Harvard Law Review 88 (May 1975): 1544-1570.
• "The Supreme Court 1974 Term: Note on Eastland v. United States Servicemen's Fund." Harvard Law Review 89 (November 1975): 131-139.