Volume 5 / Number 1 / Introduction

The Articles and Essays in this issue of The Journal of Small and Emerging Business Law were presented at the sixth annual Lewis & Clark Law Forum, entitled “The Regulation of Small and Emerging Businesses.” The Forum was organized and hosted by James L. Huffman, Dean and Professor of Law, of the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College on October 6, 2000. The mission of the Lewis & Clark law Forum is to attract leading scholars to the Law School for open intellectual discussion of legal issues of national and international importance.

Business activity in the United States is regulated by all levels of government. This regulation has grown so pervasive as to become nearly invisible—another uncontrollable external market force that drives business decisions in the same way as financial and labor markets. In the face of environmental and land use regulation, and the myriad others areas in which government regulates the economy, business owners—especially owners of small and emerging businesses—simply accept regulatory compliance as a cost of doing business. Participants in the 2000 Lewis & Clark law Forum examined the impact that extensive regulation has on small and emerging businesses, and proposed methods by which this impact might be minimized while still achieving the non-business policy goals of the regulators.

The Journal of Small and Emerging Business Law would like to thank the following scholars who participated in the 2000 Lewis & Clark Law Forum:

C. Steven Bradford, University of Nebraska
Hugo Eyzaguirre, Catholic University of Peru
James L. Huffman, Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College
Patricia H. Lee, Institute for Justice Clinic, University of Chicago Law School
George L. Preist, Yale Law School
David Schoenbrod, New York Law School
D. Gordon Smith, Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College
Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College, Moderators