Elinor Ostrom's work has immeasurably enhanced legal scholars' understanding of property. Although the richness of these contributions cannot be distilled into a single thesis, their flavor can be captured in a maxim I call Ostrom's Law: A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory. Ostrom's scholarship challenges the conventional wisdom by examining how people interact over resources on the ground -an approach that enables her to identify recurring institutional features associated with long-term success. In this essay, I trace some of the ways that Ostrom's focus on situated examples has advanced interdisciplinary dialogue about property as a legal institution and as a human invention for solving practical problems. I begin by highlighting the attention to detail that characterizes Ostrom's methodology. I then examine how Ostrom's scholarship yields insights for, and employs insights from, property theory. Next, I consider the question of scale, an important focal point of Ostrom's work, and one that carries profound implications for law. I conclude with some observations about interdisciplinarity as it relates to research on the commons.Keywords: anticommons, commons, interdisciplinarity, models, scale, semicommons Acknowledgements: I thank John O'Hara and Eric Singer for excellent research assistance, and the Stuart C. and JoAnn Nathan Faculty Fund for financial support.

Elinor Ostrom's work has immeasurably enhanced legal scholars' understanding of property. Although the richness of these contributions cannot be distilled into a single thesis, their flavor can be captured in a maxim I call Ostrom's Law: A resource arrangement that works in practice can work in theory. Ostrom's scholarship challenges the conventional wisdom by examining how people interact over resources on the ground -an approach that enables her to identify recurring institutional features associated with long-term success. In this essay, I trace some of the ways that Ostrom's focus on situated examples has advanced interdisciplinary dialogue about property as a legal institution and as a human invention for solving practical problems. I begin by highlighting the attention to detail that characterizes Ostrom's methodology. I then examine how Ostrom's scholarship yields insights for, and employs insights from, property theory. Next, I consider the question of scale, an important focal point of Ostrom's work, and one that carries profound implications for law. I conclude with some observations about interdisciplinarity as it relates to research on the commons.Keywords: anticommons, commons, interdisciplinarity, models, scale, semicommons Acknowledgements: I thank John O'Hara and Eric Singer for excellent research assistance, and the Stuart C. and JoAnn Nathan Faculty Fund for financial support.

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