W. Mark C. Weidemaier, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has published Law, Lawyers, and Self-Governance During the Heyday of the London Stock Exchange in Law and Contemporary Problems 82 (2019): 195-223. From the article:
This Article draws on original archival research, including the minutes of [London Stock Exchange (LSE)] committee meetings and correspondence with solicitors, to examine how the LSE managed its relationship with English courts and common law in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By studying that problem—rather than the problem of enforcing bargains—we can see the artificiality of any neat dichotomy between private and public legal systems. To keep English courts from disrupting its affairs, the LSE used both extralegal tools—for example, expelling members who filed prohibited lawsuits—and legal tools—such as monitoring judicial developments and funding litigation. Regardless of the nature of the tool, lawyers often shaped its response, and their advice was guided by explicitly legal concerns.–Dan Ernst
