October 9, 2026
About the Workshop
Public contracts are finally coming to the fore of public law scholarship, with scholars working in administrative law, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation focusing upon topics such as appropriations, the separation of powers related to public spending, and intergovernmental contracting as a form of federalism. These are, of course, timely topics with the rise of what some have called “appropriations presidentialism.” Public law scholars working in this burgeoning field have sometimes looked to doctrines and concepts drawn from contracts and private law theory, while others have questioned any such analogy or connection. For their part, contract law scholars have tended to give short shrift to public contracts. Notable exceptions include liberal contract theorists who have understood public contracts as a distinct type of contract, one that implicates contract theory’s engagement with questions of autonomy, self-determination, and relational justice. The organizing idea of this colloquium is that contract law theorists and public law theorists have much to offer each other in the study of public contracts. Public law scholarship on the distinctive doctrines and institutions of public contracting poses a challenge to contract law theorists seeking to understand the types and animating values of contract. Conversely, contract law scholarship challenges public law theorists who seek to understand how public contracting works and how it might work more effectively and fairly.
This colloquium seeks to bring together scholars who study public contracting from a public law perspective with scholars who focus on contract law theory. One of our main questions will be how the development of the constitutional and statutory law of public contracting as a field with its own rich, normative foundations aligns with, challenges, or maybe can be enriched by, pertinent principles of contract theory.