This collection originated in a colloquium held at Pace University School of Law in November 2003. The title of the colloquium and the title originally envisioned for this collection was the future of torts. The scholars invited to give papers at this gathering include many of the leading torts scholars in the United States, with contributions also from scholars from Australia, Canada, Colombia, and Italy. Each was asked to prepare a paper responding in some way to the question of what will be the future directions of tort law. All, with the exception of the University of Milan's Federico Stella, were able to present their papers at the School of Law, and the eleven invited papers, together with that of Prof. Stella, were each of the highest quality, innovative, and provocative.

However, by the time the participants completed their final papers some months later, two things had become clear. First, and a point mentioned by some early on, it is unlikely that any volume today could fulfill the promise entailed in a title the future of torts. Moreover, even if such an ambitious title could be validated by the work of some individual author or authors, no one could reasonably expect that a group of such highly individualistic scholars as convened here would cleave harmoniously to any single objective, even one so deceptively simple as that of viewing torts prospectively.