Ms. Kostritsky, who joined us in 1984 after practicing in New York with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, teaches Contracts, Property, and Commercial Paper. Ms. Kostritsky's most recent article "Plain Meaning vs. Broad Interpretation: How the Risk of Opportunism Defeats a Unitary Default Rule for Interpretation" was accepted for presentation by the American Law and Economics Association. She presented her paper at the Harvard Law School on May 6, 2007 which will be published in the 2007 Kentucky Law Journal. Another paper was accepted for a symposium on Freedom from Contract sponsored by the John M. Olin Center for Law and Economics, the Contract Enrichment Fund, and the Wisconsin Law Review. Her publications include: "Judicial Incorporation of Trade Usages: A Functional Solution to the Opportunism Problem", 39 Connecticut Law Review 451 (2006), "Taxonomy for Justifying Legal Intervention in an Imperfect World: What To Do When the Parties Have Not Achieved Bargains or Have Drafted Incomplete Contracts," 2004 Wisconsin Law Review 323, "The Rise and Fall of Promissory Estoppel or is Promissory Estoppel Really as Unsuccessful as Scholars Say It Is: A New Look at the Data," 37 Wake Forest L. Rev. 531 (2002), and "When Should Contract Law Supply A Liability Rule of Term? Framing a Principle of Unification for Contracts" 32 Arizona State Law Journal 1283 (2000). Ms. Kostritsky is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI).

Papers on the Social Science Resource Network (SSRN)

Papers on Berkeley Electronic Press

Professor Kostritsky is the Everett D. and Eugenia S. McCurdy Professor of Contract Law at Case Western Reserve University. Her research focuses on legal interventions in incomplete contracts, trade usages, contract interpretation, promissory estoppel and illegal contracts. She teaches Contracts, Property, Commercial Paper and Advanced Contracts. The first year classes in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2007 voted Professor Kostritsky their favorite professor.

Prior to joining the Case law faculty, Professor Kostritsky was an associate with the New York law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. She graduated with a B.A. from Harvard and a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin where she was a member and articles editor on the Wisconsin Law Review. After joining the Case faculty, Professor Kostritsky visited at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago. Kostritsky is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI) and the American Law and Economics Association (ALEA).

In 2009 Professor Kostritsky presented her paper “The Means/Ends Dilemma in Contract Interpretation: A Response to Professors Kraus and Scott” to the European Law and Economics Association Meeting in Rome, Italy. She presented “Uncertainty, Reliance, Preliminary Negotiations and the Hold up Problem” to the ALEA annual meeting in 2008, at Columbia Law School. In 2007, Kostritsky presented “Plain Meaning vs. Broad Interpretation: How the Risk of Opportunism Defeats a Unitary Default Rule for Interpretation” at the ALEA annual meeting at Harvard Law School. She organized the AALS Contracts Section in 2005 on “Incomplete Contracts: The Implications for Contract Law.” At the 2004 workshop on Freedom from Contract at the University of Wisconsin Kostritsky presented: “Taxonomy for Justifying Legal Intervention in an Imperfect World: What to Do When the Parties Have Not Achieved Bargains or Drafted Incomplete Contracts.”