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15 J. Legal Educ. 282 (1962-1963)
The Research Frontiers of Real Property Law: Commercial Land Transfers

handle is hein.journals/jled15 and id is 292 raw text is: THE RESEARCH FRONTIERS OF REAL PROPERTY, LAW: COMMERCIAL LAND TRANSFERS* CURTIS J. BERGER t Recently, Dean J. Allen Smith lamented that the subject of property had lost its nineteenth century grandeur; that younger men who are enter- ing teaching do not wish to develop careers in property; and that despite the conflicting views of the nature of property that badly divide elements in the world community, few of the foreign students now attending American law schools wander into property classes.' I join Dean Smith in his lament, for I share much of his anxiety-especially as it concerns real property, its ownership, and its commerce. I would add yet another to Dean Smith's symptoms-the lack of research ferment. An intellectual discipline remains vital only if it continues to attract those who seek to push back the limits of outer knowledge. Unless the research frontier is pursued relentlessly, there can be neither the fresh information we need to make our hypotheses nor the ongoing process of observance and evaluation as these struggle for currency. Research provides us with the tools to make an orderly choice, and without order, a discipline can scarcely escape undiscipline and unrestraint. Only accidentally, then, will it ever achieve the societal goals we should expect from it. That law schools do not meet their over-all research responsibility is a frequent indictment.2 I have not seen it quashed. But our research failure within the realm of the commercial real estate transaction is particularly acute. However inadequate the law school's total research product, com- merce in real property has failed to generate its appropriate share. Let me buttress this assertion. I turn to the prestige law reviews as Exhibit A. In a ten-year period, ending in 1956, the Harvard Law Review, for example, published approxi- mately 500 lead articles and student notes. Yet, of these, only four articles and ten notes focus upon the real estate transaction.3 And even this limited * Based on a paper presented at the Property Round Table at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, Dec. 29, 1961, Chicago, Il. t Visiting Associate Professor of Law, Columbia University. I Smith, Book Review, 70 YALE L.J. 1406, 1407 (1901). 2 See, e. g., Committee on Definition of a Sound Educational Program, Report, in PROCEEDIiGS OF THE AssociATioN OF AmERICpa LAW SCHOOLs 87, 00 (1959); Hurst, Researel Responsiblities of University Law Schools, 10 J.LEGAL ED. 147 (1957). 3 Rather than cite each item in appropriate bluebook style, an exercise likely to worry the proof-reader and weary the reader, perhaps a breakdown by category would be as useful, if only to suggest some of the scope of commercial land trans- fers. This listing includes: federal income taxation (4); co-operative apartments;

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