Associate Professor Andrew Hayashi of the University of Virginia School of Law has had a paper accepted to the 2017 Stanford/Yale/Harvard Junior Faculty Forum.

Hayashi will present "A Theory of Facts and Circumstances" during the June 6-7 conference at Stanford Law School. His paper was selected through a blind submissions process, and focuses on how courts infer state of mind from available information. No more than 20 scholars are chosen each year from among those submitting to ­the event, in which hosting rotates among the three schools.

"The article is an attempt to place some structure and discipline on the so-called 'facts and circumstances' inquiries that courts conduct when they are trying to infer something about a litigant's state of mind," Hayashi said. "I use insights from the economics literature on game theory and asymmetric information to describe the kinds of facts that courts should be looking to, and determine when law should incorporate those facts in statutes and regulations beforehand and when it should leave it up to courts to interpret an individual's conduct without that guidance."

An expert in tax law, tax policy, and behavioral law and economics, Hayashi joined the Law School in 2013 from New York University, where he served as the Nourallah Elghanayan Research Fellow at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy.

"I'm really excited about this project and am deeply honored and grateful that it was selected for the junior faculty forum," he said. "The forum is a rare opportunity to get focused feedback from senior scholars at other institutions and to meet junior scholars in my field."

Last year, UVA Law professor Michael A. Livermore was chosen to present his paper, "The Perils of Experimentation." It was later published in the Yale Law Journal.

Professor Michal Barzuza will comment as a senior faculty member at this year's conference.

The forum was created to encourage the work of scholars recently appointed to tenure-track positions. Meetings are held each spring on a rotating basis among the law campuses of Stanford, Yale and Harvard, though the event is widely attended by scholars from numerous law schools.

Hayashi earned his J.D. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. He also holds an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and a B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University.

Founded in 1819, the University of Virginia School of Law is the second-oldest continuously operating law school in the nation. Consistently ranked among the top law schools, Virginia is a world-renowned training ground for distinguished lawyers and public servants, instilling in them a commitment to leadership, integrity and community service.