Ori Katz earned his bachelor’s degree summa cum laudein law and psychology from the Hebrew University. He also received rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel.Ori was admitted to the Israel Bar Association in June 2015
As a law student, Ori served on the editorial board of Mishpatim, Hebrew University's law review. He was research assistant for Professor Eyal Zamir and Professor David Gliksberg in the field of behavioral and empirical legal studies. In addition, Ori was a TA in “Contract Law” and “Legal Research and Writing.” Upon graduation, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice Hanan Melcer.
Currently a research fellow in the faculty, Ori is writing his dissertation titled “An Attitude-Based Theory of Judgments and Decision-Making in Contract Law,” under the supervision of Professor Eyal Zamir. As a Ph.D candidate, Ori has served as a TA in “Property Law” and in the Workshop in Law and Economics, and is currently an instructor in “Contract Law.” He also practices as a prosecutor in the Student Disciplinary Committee.
Ori was awarded the Kaye Einstein Scholarship and the Joanna Friedlander Prizeand earned a research grant from the Aharon Barak Center for Interdisciplinary Legal Research. His paper, “The Remedy of Enforced Performance: Law, Theory, and Empirical Findings,” co-authored with Prof. Eyal Zamir and Dr. Leon Anijdar, was accepted to the Mishpatimjournal.Ori presented it at the Conference on Empirical Legal Studies in Europe (CELSE), KU Leuven, May 2018.
Abstract of the dissertation:
Judges' attitudes are considered a key element of judicial decision-making. When a law is implemented, the decision-maker's personal normative inclinations play a significant role in determining decisions. This happens due to two main reasons: First, when legal rules generate interpretative ambiguity, applying the law to a specific case legitimately requires judges' own interpretation. Second, judges may have a desired outcome they are inclined to arrive at, and they consciously and unconsciously adjust their arguments accordingly.
Despite the importance of judicial attitudes, no attempt has been made to systematically account for the diversity in attitudes, or to develop an empirical tool to measure them. My dissertation will take the first steps in filling this gap specifically concerning contract law. It will have four primary goals: (a) Developing an attitude-based theory of contracts by mapping the core conflicts that divide judges, lawyers, legal scholars, and laypersons regarding contract disputes. (b) Constructing and validating a questionnaire to measure people’s contractual attitudes. (c) Investigating the correlations and causal connections between contractual attitudes and individual characteristics such as gender, political affiliation, legal education, and culture. (d) Exploring how contractual attitudes influence decision-making in contracts disputes, consciously and unconsciously.
Dissertation topic: An Attitude-Based Theory of Judgments and Decision-Making in Contract Law.
Supervisor: Prof. Eyal Zamir.