Olin Foundation Law and Economics Programs Expand to Elite Law Schools

In 1987, the John M. Olin Foundation expanded its systematic funding of Law and Economics programs at elite law schools, with Stanford Law School initiating its John M. Olin Program in Law and Economics through a generous foundation gift. This represented the maturation of a decades-long effort to reshape American legal education and jurisprudence to favor corporate interests.

The Olin Foundation, founded in 1953 by chemical and munitions manufacturer John M. Olin, had been actively funding conservative legal programs since 1968 when Olin determined at age 80 that he needed to “pour his resources into preserving the free-market system.” Under president William E. Simon (Treasury Secretary under Nixon and Ford, and leveraged buyout pioneer), the foundation systematically targeted elite law schools to establish Law and Economics programs.

By the mid-1980s, the Olin Foundation had endowed Law and Economics centers at Chicago, Harvard, Stanford, Virginia, Michigan, Columbia, Cornell, and Yale law schools - ensuring that future judges, prosecutors, and corporate lawyers would be trained in applying cost-benefit analysis and market-based thinking to legal questions. This intellectual framework systematically favored corporate interests over regulatory protection and public welfare.

The Law and Economics movement promoted the idea that legal rules should be evaluated based on economic efficiency rather than justice, fairness, or protection of rights. This reframing made regulations protecting workers, consumers, and the environment appear “inefficient” while presenting corporate freedom from oversight as economically optimal.

By the time the Olin Foundation closed in 2005, it had spent more than $68 million to establish Law and Economics programs and had dispersed over $370 million total to conservative think tanks, media outlets, and university programs. The foundation’s efforts began bearing fruit as early as the 1980s, as economic reasoning became much more visible within American jurisprudence, particularly in federal courts populated by Federalist Society judges trained in Law and Economics principles.

The 1987 expansion of Olin-funded Law and Economics programs demonstrated sophisticated understanding of long-term institutional capture. By reshaping how elite law schools taught future lawyers and judges to think about law, the foundation ensured that corporate-friendly legal reasoning would become normalized across the judiciary and legal profession for generations, complementing the Federalist Society’s judicial appointment infrastructure with intellectual indoctrination in law schools themselves.