Call for Abstracts - Consumer Law Scholars Conference 2026

Call for Abstracts - CLSC 2026

If you would like to workshop an unpublished paper, please submit HERE by September 12, 2025: (1) a title, (2) a brief abstract that includes an explanation of how your article relates to other published work and advances the field, and (3) an outline of the article.  

Your abstract should, among other things, situate your paper within existing legal scholarship in a manner that is sufficient for the members of the Organizing Committee to appreciate both the genesis of your project and its contribution to the field. It is unnecessary to mention specific authors, but helpful to briefly summarize what the literature has and has not said. The more the Committee knows about your paper, the better able we are to assess whether this is the right year to include it in the program. Full drafts are welcome, but definitely not required.

Everyone – regardless of previous participation – is encouraged to submit their abstracts for consideration.  However, please note that it is CLSC policy to prioritize authors whose work was not presented the preceding year.

We welcome doctrinal, theoretical, and empirical approaches. Potential topics include the full breadth of issues involving consumers in the marketplace: common law contracts and products liability; UDA(A)P and disclosure laws; food, drug, and health law and policy; consumer lending, credit reporting, and fintech; loan servicing and debt collection; cryptocurrency; commercial speech and the First Amendment; federalism, preemption, and sovereign immunity as related to consumer transactions; regulation, supervision, and enforcement by public agencies; private enforcement; advertising; application of consumer laws to nontraditional areas like criminal justice, domestic violence, and immigration; the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic; artificial intelligence; and other topics whose study may advance the field.

Examples of submissions from previous years showing the appropriate format may be found here.

Please upload your abstract and outline as a single PDF (preferred) or Word Doc file.

Please name your file as follows: [Submitter Last Name]_[Paper Title]_CLSC 2026 submission.

Note: upon submission you will receive an email confirmation that your abstract + outline has been received. If you do not see the confirmation, please check your spam folder before reaching out to Ben Hiebert (ben.hiebert@law.berkeley.edu) to confirm receipt.

We plan to inform authors whose submissions have been accepted by November. Drafts of complete papers (for workshop discussion) will be due January 30, 2026. We reserve the right to cancel a session if a draft paper is not sufficiently developed or provided sufficiently in advance for meaningful review by participants.

Dates and Deadlines:

Questions?

Feel free to contact Ted Mermin (tmermin@law.berkeley.edu), and/or conference logistics coordinator Ben Hiebert (ben.hiebert@law.berkeley.edu).