Fiduciary Law

What makes a relationship fiduciary—and what safeguards should follow when one person entrusts another with property, power, or judgment? In Fiduciary Law, legal scholar Tamar Frankel explores those questions across the rules, duties, and debates that shape fiduciary relationships.

The book moves from defining these relationships to examining their history, practical boundaries, and legal consequences. Its focus is not only on what fiduciaries owe, but also on how the law can preserve the trust that makes entrustment possible.

Defining fiduciary relationships

Frankel considers the recurring features of fiduciary relationships, proposes a definition, and examines examples and boundary cases. The discussion asks how courts recognize these relationships and acknowledges that trust and entrusted power can also create opportunities for abuse.

From early legal traditions to modern U.S. law

A historical chapter traces ideas relevant to fiduciary law through sources including the Laws of Hammurabi and Eshnunna, religious traditions, Roman law, the High Middle Ages, and recent U.S. history. This broader view places contemporary legal debates in a long-running conversation about responsibility and trust.

The duties at the heart of fiduciary law

Central chapters examine the duties of loyalty and care, the rules that give effect to loyalty, compensation and service contracts, conflicts between the interests fiduciaries serve, and fiduciaries’ rights and protections. Frankel also considers when public interest should matter and how fiduciary duties appear in legislation.

Consent, courts, and remedies

The book explores how fiduciaries may be released from duties, the nature of consent, and the role of default rules and contracts. It also considers whether fiduciary law should be treated as a distinct legal category, then surveys judicial discretion, equitable and other remedies, criminal sanctions, standing, and procedural questions.

For readers studying law and entrusted responsibility

With its combination of historical context, legal analysis, and attention to institutional design, Fiduciary Law will interest legal scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and readers studying trusts, corporate and financial relationships, or fiduciary duties. Frankel’s central concern reaches beyond doctrine: how can legal rules protect people who place responsibility in another’s hands while sustaining the trust such relationships require?