{"id":3667,"date":"2024-09-03T20:56:41","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T20:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/?p=3667"},"modified":"2024-09-06T02:22:07","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T02:22:07","slug":"robert-lande-a-public-intellectual","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/robert-lande-a-public-intellectual\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Lande: A \u2018Public Intellectual\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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By Hope Keller<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\"Bob
Prof. Emeritus Robert Lande<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Just four years out of Harvard Law School, a young Federal Trade Commission attorney named Robert Lande took on Robert Bork, the mandarin of U.S. antitrust thought whose 1978 book, <\/span>The Antitrust Paradox,<\/span><\/i> had become the foundational text of conservative competition policy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

In a 1982 <\/span>Hastings Law Journal<\/span><\/i> article<\/span><\/a>, Lande contested Bork\u2019s premise that the purpose of the antitrust laws was to promote economic efficiency, or what Bork \u2013 misleadingly, Lande says \u2013 called consumer welfare. A study of the legislative history of the main antitrust acts, including the 1890 Sherman Act, had shown Lande that Congress\u2019 overriding concern was not efficiency but protecting consumers from exorbitant prices imposed by monopolies and cartels.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cYou can find dozens and dozens of comments by Sen. (John) Sherman and the other members of Congress saying, \u2018We really don\u2019t like it when the mo<\/span><\/p>

nopolies and cartels raise prices,\u2019\u201d Lande said in a recent interview. \u201cAnd (Bork) now said, \u2018What\u2019s wrong with raising prices so long as it\u2019s efficient?\u2019\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Lande, who retired in June 2024 as Venable Professor of Law after 37 years at UBalt Law, also dismisses Bork\u2019s use of the term \u201cconsumer welfare.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cIt had nothing to do with the welfare of consumers,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was brilliant marketing.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Neil Averitt, a former colleague of Lande\u2019s at the FTC and an opinion columnist at <\/span>FTC: Watch<\/span><\/i>, remembers thinking at the time that Lande was crazy for tilting at antitrust orthodoxy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cI thought, Bob, why are you <\/span>writing that silly article?\u201d recalls Averitt, who contributed a chapter to the most recent issue of the University of Baltimore <\/span>Law Review<\/span><\/i>, which was published as a <\/span>Festschrift<\/span><\/i> in honor of Lande and his scholarship.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Now, he says, \u201cit turns out that Bob was entirely prescient.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Arriving at UBalt Law<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>

In 1987, after leaving the FTC and working briefly at Jones Day in Washington, D.C., Lande arrived at the UBalt School of Law. He had just published another law review article that again challenged Bork, by now a federal judge, who had recently been nominated by President Ronald Reagan to the Supreme Court.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cI published this article saying that Bork claims to be a strict constructionist, and all he wants to do is implement the will of Congress. But if you look at what he did in antitrust, it\u2019s the opposite,\u201d Lande says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Lande gave the article to UBalt Law\u2019s then-Dean Laurence Katz, who was, he knew, \u201con the other side of the ideological spectrum.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cWith a little bit of trepidation, I gave Larry Katz a copy of that article saying Bork is a hypocrite, don\u2019t confirm him to the Supreme Court,\u201d Lande says. \u201cI had never taught a class yet.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Katz was effusive in his praise.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cHe said, \u2018I\u2019m so glad you published this article, this is wonderful. The point is, you publish what you want, and it makes the university look good and the law school look good,\u2019\u201d Lande recalls. \u201cAnd I\u2019m thinking, \u2018Oh my goodness, this is called academic freedom!\u2019\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\"\"
Law Review Symposium Editor Kaitlin O\u2019Dowd, J.D. \u201923, left, with Prof. Matthew Lindsay, Prof. Emeritus Robert Lande and Dean Ronald Weich at the 2023 antitrust symposium.<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Public intellectual<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>

Professor John Bessler said he thinks of Lande as a public intellectual, one who has continued to carry the torch for an antitrust policy that \u201cprotects the little guy who doesn\u2019t have the resources to hire lobbyists.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cYou could see it almost through the framework of human rights in a way, because if people can\u2019t afford stuff, whether it\u2019s products or services, they\u2019re suffering,\u201d says Bessler, who contributed a chapter to the <\/span>Festschrift<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Bessler emphasizes that Lande\u2019s competition policy scholarship also focused on consumer choice.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cA lot of what Bob\u2019s work is all about is not just about the price alone,\u201d Bessler says. \u201cIt\u2019s also about having different options,\u201d or real competition.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Continues Bessler: \u201cIf you\u2019re going to have true capitalism, you have to have competition policy that\u2019s effective. Bob wants actual competition, actual capitalism, not crony capitalism –or what some people call monopoly capitalism.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Antitrust eminence and \u2018delightful human\u2019<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>

Today, Lande has six national awards and 45 law review articles under his belt, as well as a textbook, several book chapters and 75 other articles published in mainstream outlets, including <\/span>The Washington Post<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>The Atlantic<\/span><\/i>, plus articles published in foreign legal publications. He has been on the SSRN list of the 15 most-downloaded antitrust scholars almost every year since 2008, and he is sought after by journalists covering antitrust cases, sometimes speaking with more than 20 reporters a day.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

A former student recalls him fondly.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

William Atkins, J.D.\/MBA \u201992<\/span><\/b>, who worked as Lande\u2019s research assistant, says Lande cautioned him to beware the siren song and the trap of corporate law.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cHe told me, \u2018You\u2019re going down to D.C.; be careful,\u2019\u201d says Atkins, a partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in Northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., who specializes in intellectual property law. \u201cHe said the first thing new lawyers do is they go to <\/span>Fahrney\u2019s<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> to buy an expensive pen, and wear it proudly in their chest pocket. Next, they lease a Mercedes. And then they buy a house in Bethesda. And they don\u2019t even hear the handcuffs go click-click-click.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Says Atkins, who might not have followed his professor\u2019s advice to the letter: \u201cHe\u2019s such a wonderful, delightful human.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Happy warrior<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>

Lande says he will miss interacting with students.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cOne thing that would always give me a thrill is to compare how they do at the very beginning of the semester, when they can\u2019t read the case, they can\u2019t understand anything about it, to how well they can perform — even at the end of the first semester. It\u2019s thrilling to watch,\u201d he says. \u201cTo think that I might have had something to do with their progress is just wonderful.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Lande\u2019s colleagues will miss his upbeat nature in addition to his erudition.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u201cI guess you could call him the happy warrior of antitrust, because he doesn\u2019t get jaded,\u201d Bessler says. \u201cHe just accepts what\u2019s happening at the moment and says, \u2018Well, how can we make it better going forward?\u2019\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Lande was honored at the law school on March 10, 2023 with a daylong symposium, \u201cThe Quest for Progressive Antitrust: A Symposium Honoring Professor Robert H. Lande.\u201d Speakers included U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Jonathan Kanter and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee. Also present were the authors of articles contributed to the <\/span>Festschrift<\/span><\/i>, including colleagues from the American Antitrust Institute, where Lande is a founding member of its board of directors.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The <\/span>Festschrift<\/span><\/i> was published as the <\/span>Spring 2024 issue<\/span><\/a> of the University of Baltimore <\/span>Law Review<\/span><\/i> and, at 514 pages, is its largest issue ever.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Hope Keller <\/strong>is a writer based in Connecticut
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By Hope Keller\u00a0 Just four years out of Harvard Law School, a young Federal Trade Commission attorney named Robert Lande took on Robert Bork, the mandarin of U.S. antitrust thought whose 1978 book, The Antitrust Paradox, had become the foundational text of conservative competition policy.\u00a0 In a 1982 Hastings Law Journal article, Lande contested Bork\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3596,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3667"}],"version-history":[{"count":59,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4868,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3667\/revisions\/4868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/lawmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}