The Legal Analyst: A Toolkit for Thinking about the Law

by Ward Farnsworth

There are two kinds of knowledge law school legal rules on the one hand, and tools for thinking about legal problems on the other. Although the tools are far more interesting and useful than the rules, they tend to be neglected in favor of other aspects of the curriculum. In The Legal Analyst , Ward Farnsworth brings together in one place all of the most powerful of those tools for thinking about law.

From classic ideas in game theory such as the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” and the “Stag Hunt” to psychological principles such as hindsight bias and framing effects, from ideas in jurisprudence such as the slippery slope to more than two dozen other such principles, Farnsworth’s guide leads readers through the fascinating world of legal thought. Each chapter introduces a single tool and shows how it can be used to solve different types of problems. The explanations are written in clear, lively language and illustrated with a wide range of examples.

The Legal Analyst is an indispensable user’s manual for law students, experienced practitioners seeking a one-stop guide to legal principles, or anyone else with an interest in the law.

Genres: Law, Nonfiction, Legal, Politics, Philosophy, Economics, Business

326 pages, Paperback

First published June 15, 2007

About the author

Ward Farnsworth is Dean and John Jeffers Research Chair at the University of Texas School of Law. He formerly was Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law at the Boston University Law School. He has served as a law clerk to Anthony M. Kennedy of the United States Supreme Court and to Richard A. Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and worked as a Legal Adviser to the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in the Hague. He received his J.D. with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School, and his B.A. from Wesleyan University.

Farnsworth is the author of books on law, philosophy, rhetoric, and chess. He also has published scholarly articles on the economic analysis of law, constitutional law, statutory interpretation, jurisprudence, and cognitive psychology. He serves as Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Restatement Third, Torts: Liability for Economic Harm.

Reviews

[Bryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most lists of "What to Read the Summer Before Law School" are bullshit. One's concerns the first year are overwhelming practical -- Am I cut out for this job? What should I learn from these cases? What should I take away from the class discussion? How can I tell a good outline from a poor one? How should I prepare for tests? -- yet the books suggested to incoming 1Ls offer little or no answers to these questions.

Here's the nonsense they usually recommend:
1. Broad "theory" books
Examples include Holmes's "The Common Law", Posner's "Economic Analysis of the Law", and Epstein's "Simple Rules for a Complex World" or Rawls's "A Theory of Justice". These books may be wonderful (not Holmes -- he's a shitty writer), but they are unhelpful when it comes to navigating your first year. They are better left to 2nd and 3rd year classes on legal theory or jurisprudence. (BTW, completely avoid Levi's "An Introduction to Legal Reasoning". It's horribly written and fit only for making paper airplanes.)

2. Legal history
Examples include Friedman's "A History of American Law" and usually some work on the history of the Supreme Court. If you're interested in this field take an elective on legal history your 2nd or 3rd year. If your school doesn't offer a class on legal history (as mine sadly doesn't), save it for sometime after your first year. By then you'll know something about, say, estates in land and it'll make a helluva lot more sense.

3. Accounts of landmark legal cases, Supreme Court justice memoirs, and other general-audience legal nonfiction
Examples include Harr's "A Civil Action", Turow's "One L", Lewis's "Gideon's Trumpet", and Sterns's "The Buffalo Creek Disaster". Again, some of these books are really excellent, but they will NOT help prepare you for your first year. They may be great stories, they may reassure you about your chosen profession -- so what? You need books that will help you make sense of the cases you'll be reading and concepts you'll be learning. In that regard these books are worthless.

4. Great literature
Examples include almost anything on Western Literature Hits List, but ones that seem to pop up repeatedly include "Crime and Punishment", "The Brother Karamozov", and "Bleak House". Anyone who includes a novel on their list is not to be trusted because they are not serious about helping, you, the new law student.

So, now that I've told you what to avoid, what books should the eager-to-succeed 1L seek out the summer before he/she starts?

1. Any one of the "how to succeed" in law school books
Currently, the most popular seems to be Miller's "Law School Confidential" but I found Greene's "Law School for Dummies" to be just as helpful and there are many more like Deaver's "The Complete Law School Companion", Noyes's "Acing Your First Year of Law School", and Hricik's "Law School Basics". It's probably a good idea to read any two of these to compare the similarities and differences of approach.

2. John Delaney's "Learning Legal Reasoning"
Yes, briefing is a pain in the ass, but it's important and Delaney teaches you WHY and exactly HOW to do it. Law schools should automatically send copies of this book to all incoming 1Ls.

3. A book on test-taking
Fischl and Paul's "Getting to Maybe" is highly regarded by many but I haven't read it so I can't vouch. I have read John Delaney's "How To Do Your Best on Law School Exams" and can recommend it. For those with a little extra money, I would also get Wentworth Miller's 8-CD & Workbook "Legal Essay Exam Writing System" aka LEEWS.

4. The Legal Analyst: A Toolkit for Thinking about the Law
I've only read the first three chapters of this books but it's already clear this belongs on the shortlist of indispensable books to read before starting law school. At first blush, it looks like one of the "theory" books said to avoid in the first list. And, yes, the book is heavy on theory. The difference is this book is not about one overarching theory but many different ones, some of which you will see invoked repeatedly as rationales in judicial opinions and during class discussion. Understanding the difference between the ex post and ex ante perspectives or the idea of efficiency will put you WAY AHEAD of the other students in class. It's one thing to be able to read a case and extract the rule. It's a whole different, deeper and subtler level of comprehension to be able to understand the reasoning behind the rule and point out alternatives the judge failed to take into account. This book will help you do that.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Upon receiving a letter of acceptance to Chicago Law School last winter, a friend of mine at Harvard Law wrote me an email recommending three books as absolute must-reads prior to beginning my 1L year: "The Bramble Bush" by Karl Llewellyn, "Getting to Maybe" by Richard Michael Fischl and Jeremy Paul, and "The Legal Analyst" by Ward Farnsworth. All three have proven extremely stimulating, and although their relevance has not yet been borne out by the rigors of my first year of law school (which begins in just two months), I am confident that they will provide great value as I begin to study the law.

Farnsworth, a professor at Boston University Law School, seeks to erect an analytical framework for students new to the law. Rather than approach the law as a discipline unto itself, Farnsworth instead illuminates the interdisciplinary aspect of law currently in vogue within the legal academy, illustrating the use of intuitions from economics, game theory, psychology, and more as it applies to legal disputes. The work is split into five parts: Incentives; Trust, Cooperation, and Other Problems for Multiple Players; Jurisprudence; Willingness to Pay and Willingness to Accept: The Endowment Effect and Kindred Ideas; and Problems of Proof.

This book is very readable, with chapters that stand on their own and can be read selectively as the situation demands; in this sense, it makes not only a great read for the summer before law school, but also a reference for current students and practitioners of the law. Each chapter spans only about 10 pages, and follows a fairly formulaic outline, beginning with the theory of the topic of interest and then providing several examples from real and imaginary disputes and settlements.

Although this approach is effective at times, it also tends to wear the reader down. The formula turns into an almost tedious repetition, which makes it difficult to read for too long of a time without becoming at least a little bit bored. Furthermore, since this book serves primarily as a primer for a law student unfamiliar with legal analysis, many of the topics discussed maintain a fairly narrow scope. A student of economics, for example, will find Farnsworth’s treatment of these issues (which comprises well over half of the book; a tip-of-the-hat to the dominance of the law & economics school) somewhat pedantic and basic. A full 80 pages spent on problems of game theory such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the Stag Hunt, Chicken, and other staples of introductory game theory courses led me almost to skip this section entirely.

However, this book does not purport to be a comprehensive treatment of these issues and their relevance to the law. As the work’s subtitle indicates, Farnsworth aims to provide “A Toolkit for Thinking about the Law,” and to this end, he does a remarkable job. By drawing connections between various disciplines and focusing on concrete examples rather than abstract theory, Farnsworth creates an excellent book that introduces students of the law to the ideas that permeate the discipline but that were otherwise not taught in any class – or in any book – until now.

[Rex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Farnsworth compiles 31 chapters that each deal with a perspective or “tool” for analyzing legal thought. The chapters deal with a wide range of topics that encompass principles from law and economics, behavioral psychology, game theory, jurisprudence, standards of review, etc.

My very brief thoughts on each chapter follow:

Ex ante/Ex post—should the legal system attempt to simply “fix” a mess after it has happened or should it attempt to provide “proper” incentives to future actors in a similar situation?

Efficiency—Many legal rules can be rationalized by maximizing efficiency (Kaldor-Hicks = highest net benefit; Pareto = Maximally efficient without making someone else worse off; should efficiency be an important legal value?

Margins—Laws most often operate at the margins, thus by thinking in all-or-nothing terms many people fail to see the real argument; marginal deterrence—scaling penalties so that there is always an incentive to behave better can provide benefits

Single Owner—a single owner is forced to internalize all the costs and thus makes decisions considering all of the repercussions, thus, thinking like a single owner makes sure that all these costs are considered

Least cost avoider—design legal rules such that expenses should be born by the party that could avoid the cost most cheaply, this provides incentives for those who are best positioned to avoid the harm to take adequate precautions

Administrative costs—some legal rules, although theoretically sound, are too expensive to administer; only cost-justified legal rules should be adopted
Rents—Rent-seekers wastefully compete for a prize, thus rent-seeking inherently does not create wealth—it only seeks to distribute it; lobbyists are famously rent-seeking

Coase Theorem—in a world of no transaction costs, it doesn’t matter who is assigned property rights because the rights will naturally flow to whoever values the property most; however because transaction costs matter legal rules should attempt to assign property rights to those who value them most to maximize efficiency

Agency—An agent lacks the proper incentives to always act in the interest of the principal; Legal rules can help align incentives between agent and principal

Prisoner’s dilemma—each individual has an incentive to defect; however in an optimal system they would agree to cooperate; law should try to incentivize this type of cooperation (e.g., bankruptcy law’s preference period)

Public goods—goods that cannot be excluded from others; because people can not be excluded the incentive to create public goods may be too low because they cannot monetize their investment; norms can be used to encourage the development of public goods

Stag Hunt—Term derived from Rousseau’s stag hunt; different from prisoner’s dilemma in that everyone’s best choice is to cooperate (not defect), however, if the other party defects then cooperation is the worst scenario (Nash equilibrium—given what everyone else is doing none can do better by changing their choices); this is why redistributive tax policies are more popular than voluntarily writing checks to redistribute their own income to others

Chicken—Best case scenario is where one is a hawk and the other is a dove; each party would rather be a hawk than a dove; international politics are often games of chicken; may not be a single best solution to a game of chicken

Cascades—Often ideas (information cascades) gain acceptance even when the underlying rationale is weak due to cascade effects; this may be because certain ideas are simply more “available”

Voting paradoxes—when you have more than three in an election than it is often difficult to say much about people’s true preferences (Condorcet, impossibility theorem); the order in which people consider options may matter

Suppressed Markets—some cultures consciously develop an anti-competitive atmosphere to gain social advantages; this comes with important costs—it may allow an less productive person to receive more benefits than they deserve and vice versa

Rules v. Standards—bright-line rules give better notice and are more efficient from an ex post perspective; rules are often over/under inclusive and do not evolve well over time; standards allow more discretion, have lower ex ante costs, but give less notice; in choosing between rules and standards the relevant question is this: is the abuse of a rule’s precision of a standard’s vagueness more problematic?

Slippery slopes—a first decision can lower the costs of a second unfavorable position; in these situations it may be wise to avoid the first step; that a slippery slope will occur is difficult to identify

Acoustic separation—Is it always good that people have complete notice of the law? Perhaps there is good reason to have law on the books (create proper ex ante incentives) yet enforce a the law differently (allow for better ex post outcomes)

Property/Liability Rules—The remedies for violation of property rules and liability rules differ. Violation of a property rules usually result in “punishment” that is not satisfied by recompensing the wrong (thief does not avoid consequences by writing a check). Liability rules only require recompense. There can be a spectrum between these two types of rules. Property rules make more sense when property can be bargained for. Liability is better when bargaining is not realistic.

Baselines—debates about whether a law is paternalistic are almost always oversimplified as the law operates (at least in the background) in all situations; the real question should be whether the new law passes an appropriate cost-benefit analysis test

WTP/WTA/Endowment effects—Humans are wire to value things more that they own more than the very same lost opportunity; thus law faces an important question—who should be given the property/right in the first place and should you value this based on a person’s willingness to pay (WTP) or willingness to accept (WTA)

Hindsight bias—Humans tend to think that events that actually occurred were foreseeable before the event happened; thus we systematically exaggerate foreseeable of these events; this can skew or judgment (e.g., overestimate the value of P in the Learned Hand formula); similarly we tend to harshly condemn actions that lead to poor outcomes (outcome bias)

Framing effects—People tend to award judgments based on a compromise of the suggested damages from both sides; also a choice can be made more appealing by placing it next to an obviously less beneficial choice; lawyers often use these techniques to persuade juries

Anchoring—initial points of reference may serve as anchors for thoughts that follow

Self-serving bias and attribution error—When you are better off if something is true, you have a tendency to believe it = self-serving bias; attribution error = exaggerate personal qualities, underestimate the importance of conditions

Presumptions—judicial decisions do not typically decide whether someone is “guilty” or not, but rather determine whether a “burden of proof” has been met; these presumption often reflect our values

Standards of Proof—How much confidence should we require for a decision? Chevron deference for agencies, sometimes the law uses the ambiguity of standards of proof to provide a guise of equal treatment

Product Rule—the product rule assumes that events are independent—this is often not the case; in a multi-element tort the plaintiff need only establish that each element is “more likely than not” to have occurred; thus, there can be a “conjunction paradox”; but juries may not actually think in these terms

Base rate—numbers need always be evaluated in context; need to understand the background rate to evaluate the new evidence

Values and markets—Markets are very useful for establishing an objective measure of value; in some circumstances, however, there is no market and thus it is very difficult to establish value; also markets say nothing about subjective value

I thought that the book was good for a beginner like me to better understand the tools and principles that underlie many legal rules and decisions.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to feed your inner law geek, read this book.

[Rick Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Content is quite good. The organization leaves a little bit to be desired. probably closer to four stars, but I have to maintain standards. There’s a rewrititten version of this book that is outstanding,

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

My main goal in teaching my introductory Economics class was to give students a good set of mental tools for understanding the world. One semester, I had a student who already had a surprisingly good understanding of game theory and questions of knowledge and proof. As we talked after class, he mentioned that he had learned these things from a book assigned for an introductory law class. After I asked about the book, he lent it to me.

From the minute I started reading The Legal Analyst, I saw that it was consistently excellent. About two-thirds of it was a readable, intuitive, high-quality summary of things I already knew, and the other third was new information that I am very glad to have. After finishing the book, my professional opinion is that it is extraordinarily good. Anyone who studies it will be a much better thinker and citizen.

The Legal Analyst is not just a law textbook. The subtitle is A toolkit for thinking about the law. These should be reversed. The title of the book should be A Toolkit for Thinking and the subtitle should be using examples from the legal system. The book is an excellent overview of a lot of very important things, such as incentives, thinking at the margin, game theory, the social value of rules and standards, heuristics and biases in human thinking, and the tools of rational thinking. It has the best intuitive explanation of Bayes' Theorem I have ever seen, making this incredibly important mental tool available for everyone's use.

I am very glad that law students are reading The Legal Analyst. They will be much better thinkers as a result. The existence of this book makes me more optimistic about the future of our government and legal system. If the principles outlined here become widely understood, the world will be a better place. This book should be required reading in any course that can get away with assigning it. Anyone who is responsible for writing any kind of regulation or policy, or does economic analysis, needs the information in this book.

The Legal Analyst is a very easy book to read, making it even better from a cost-benefit analysis standpoint. I read it a few chapters a time, in my spare time, without any mental effort required. A great deal of high-quality research has been carefully and expertly summarized in clear, vibrant language.

Anyone who has an interest in understanding how the world works, or becoming a more rational thinker, should read The Legal Analyst.

[Philip Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Law straddles ethics & morality (obviously), civics, politics, economics, and psychology. Rich insights were brought in from all of these disciplines in a way that made complete sense and helped me see the logic of the way laws are structured that I would previously have been occasionally baffled by (though to be sure, I'm still not persuaded by the reasoning behind everything Farnsworth addresses). My favourite bits were on efficiency, margins, cascades, acoustic seperation, framing effects, anchoring, and base rates.

In the preface the author recommends that you read this in the summer before law school and after you graduate law school. I have no intention of going to law school so I don't know where that leaves me. But I liked it a lot.

[Jack Hofmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting. Big dog bite guy

[sk · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finally finished! This is probably the longest it has ever taken me to finish a book that’s only around 300 pages, and it’s because a) I wanted to take my time and slowly digest everything as I’m attending law school in the fall and b) this book is SO densely packed with useful information.

I haven’t actually been to law school yet so only time will reveal how useful this book will be for me and my future comprehension of the law. However, I can say that it was incredibly accessible in its writing style and I loved the approach it took to teaching the material.

I know that my law classes will be broken up into types of law such as torts, criminal law, constitutional law, etc. and I think it was really helpful to read this book first, which gives introductions to many legal theories and applies each of them to many different types of law at once, so that the reader is seeing how these types of law interact with one another and each fit under various ways of thinking.

I also liked the use of economics, psychology, philosophy, etc. to help explain the law. It creates a broader picture and a great introduction to these ways of thinking that I know I’ll soon be getting familiar with.

I know this was written in the early 2000s, so I can mostly excuse the lack of inclusivity in the examples used, such as the sole use of “he” throughout the book, (and I understand that the point was to be “objective” hence why many examples are written the way they are) but I hope that future books of this kind are being written from a less traditional and more informed lens. Mainly because it’s important to have inclusivity and certain ethical standards made clear in the law, and in society in general.

[molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've used this for my classes at university and it's very useful, I had little experience with law and the tools used in understanding law before I started these studies and this book is presise and to the point, still thorough, not horribly dry as many others are. A good read.

[Laila Kahlout · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a clear, accessible index to the big-picture theories that shape our legal system. Ward Farnsworth does a great job breaking down complex ideas into plain language and showing how they play out in real legal rules and institutions. He was a clerk of Judge Posner and you can hear it in his conversational prose. The only reason I deducted one star is that the subject matter (legal theory) is hard to get excited to read, so it took me most of the year to work through it.

[Zachary Littrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's crazy how much I liked this. Farnsworth sneakily wrote an intro to game theory, probability, psychology, and quantitative reasoning gussied up in lawyer clothing. Kinda like your mom slipping broccoli into mac and cheese, except in this case I like both mac and cheese and broccoli! It's logic puzzles disguised as actual cases (or pretty realistic hypotheticals) and gives a lot of food for thought.

* If a thief shoots a customer of a bank when the teller refused to give into the thief's demands, should the bank pay the customer's family?

* Are "three strikes" rules a good idea?

* How do unions and companies manage incentives to coerce employees to behave a certain way?

* If you're hit by a random bus, and a company owns 80% of the buses, is that enough reason to sue that company? (If a fingerprint matches a criminal, is that enough reason?)

* How much is a stay-at-home spouse worth dead?

* How can we vote on *Anything* in a fair way?

It does lose a little bit of steam by the end as Farnsworth gets mired in calculations and the slightly depressing undertone that there are no right answers, just wronger ones. But for 90% of the ride, I was having a ball.

[ไม้ไต่คู้ · Rating 4 out of 5]

หากโจรปล้นธนาคารขู่ว่าจะยิงตัวประกันหากธนาคารไม่ส่งเงินมา แต่ธนาคารปฏิเสธที่จะมอบเงินให้โจร โจรเลยยิงตัวประกันและหลบหนีไป ครอบครัวผู้เสียชีวิตเลยยื่นฟ้องธนาคารว่าเป็นสาเหตุทำให้ตัวประกันถูกยิงเสียชีวิต

คุณจะตัดสินคดีนี้อย่างไร? ชวนอ่าน The Legal Analyst


บางคนอาจตัดสินว่าธนาคารควรจ่ายเงินเยียวยาให้ครอบครัวเหยื่อ เพราะครอบครัวเหยื่อเป็นเพียงคนตัวเล็กตัวน้อย เมื่อสูญเสียคนที่รักไปแล้วอย่างน้อยก็ควรได้ค่าชดเชย ในขณะที่ธนาคารเป็นสถาบันขนาดใหญ่ มีกำลังเงินมากพอจะเยียวยาชดเชย และเมื่อเหตุเกิดในพื้นที่ของธนาคาร ธนาคารก็ควรต้องรับผิดชอบ

มุมมองแบบนี้เรียกว่า ex post perspective (ย้อนทบทวนเหตุการณ์ที่เกิดขึ้น และพิจารณาเป็นกรณีๆ ไปว่า ความเสียหายที่เกิดขึ้นควรให้ใครรับผิดชอบถึงจะแฟร์ที่สุด) ซึ่งเป็นสิ่งที่ดี แต่ยังไม่ใช่คำตอบเดียวสำหรับการคิดในเชิงกฎหมาย เราจำเป็นต้องมีมุมมองแบบ ex ante perspective ด้วยการมองไปในอนาคต และใคร่ครวญว่าคำตอบของเราจะทำให้แรงจูงใจของสังคมโดยรวมเปลี่ยนไปอย่างไรด้วย

เช่น หากเราตัดสินให้ธนาคารแพ้คดี เมื่อมีเหตุปล้นธนาคารอีก ธนาคารอาจกลัวที่จะต้องเป็นคดีความกับครอบครัวเหยื่อ และเลือกมอบเงินให้โจรไปเลยตั้งแต่แรก ส่วนโจรก็มีแรงจูงใจที่จะปล้นธนาคารและจับคนเป็นตัวประกัน เพราะรู้ว่าทำแล้วธนาคารจะยอมมอ��เงินให้โดยไม่แข็งขืน

หรืออีกตัวอย่างคือ หากหลักฐานมัดตัวคนร้ายอยู่ในบันทึกการรักษาที่คนร้ายเคยคุยกับจิตแพทย์ คุณคิดว่าเราควรอนุญาตให้นำบันทึกนี้ไปใช้เป็นหลักฐานในชั้นศาลหรือไม่?

ex pose perspective จะบอกว่าควรให้ใช้ เพราะใช้แล้วคนทำผิดจะถูกจับ สังคมเกิดความยุติธรรม แต่ ex ante perspective จะบอกว่าไม่ควรให้ใช้ เพราะถ้าเรายอมให้ใช้ หลังจากนี้คนที่ไปพบจิตแพทย์จะมีเ���ิดความรู้สึกว่า ทุกคำที่พูดกับหมออาจกลายเป็นข้อมูลสาธารณะในอนาคต ความกลัวนี้อาจทำให้คนไข้ปิดบังข้อมูลที่จำเป็นต่อการรักษา เกิดกำแพงระหว่างคนไข้กับจิตแพทย์ และทำให้การบำบัดรักษาผู้ป่วยหลังจากนี้เป็นไปได้ยากขึ้น

มุมมองแบบ ex ante จึงไม่ได้พิจารณาเฉพาะเคสที่อยู่ตรงหน้า แต่จะพิจารณาว่าคำตัดสินจะส่งผลกระทบต่อเคสที่คล้ายคลึงกันในอนาคตอย่างไรด้วย นั่นทำให้คำตัดสินทางกฎหมายบางครั้งอาจดูโหดร้ายเมื่อมองเป็นรายเคส แต่คำตัดสินนั้นอาจทำหน้าที่ป้องกันไม่ให้เกิดเคสแบบเดียวกันในอนาคตนั่นเอง


disclaim ก่อนว่าไม่มีความรู้ด้านกฎหมายนะครับ และยังอ่านไม่จบ เลยบอกไม่ได้ว่าเนื้อหา valid มากน้อยแค่ไหน แต่ส่วนตัวคิดว่าหนังสือดี เปิดมุมมอง อ่านสนุก อ่านไม่ยาก ไม่ต้องรู้กฎหมายก็อ่านได้

[Charles Lincoln · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bucko, I have a review for this.

This book is not as much a tool kit for practicing attorney, although suppose it could be to some extent it’s more about the economic and philosophical foundations for the judgments that appear in common as well as the statutory law reasoning that may be behind certain laws. Certainly, I think the many arguments are the slippery slope that are common or creating incentives, but then there’s also a wide discussion of command theory. At the beginning of the book, he suggest instead of subject being taught in law schools based on doctrine substantive law such as we do throughout the United States as property contracts, criminal law towards, etc. we could base courses around incentive such as creating incentives and pulling in examples from criminal law towards liability or property law to by certain behavior instead of just memorizing or maybe memorizing isn’t the right word but it’s a propose in some extent in the sense that we learn these rules in law school and and although ideas, such as incentives may come in, it’s not based around the idea of studying what incentives and how incentives influence the decisions that lawmakers, and also how law influences social behavior as well.

I think another aspect that maybe is missing for this book, but it could be the possibility of another future booked is how psychology and sociology interact with philosophy and Juper, as well as economics because he states that perhaps that the end of his analysis from an economic perspective needs to be done at the point in which psychology or sociology comes into play and frankly, I wish he would continue that because I think economics From Adam Smith’s perspective could be extended to psychology as well, so I think having a holistic analysis of everything would be useful now I could see that even this could turn into a slippery slope where we say that economics, influences psychology, influences social behavior, and then ultimately even influences or is influenced by biology, which is intern influenced by chemistry, which is intern influenced by physics, which physics ultimately at the subatomic level is influenced by philosophy of language and then we go back to philosophy, influencing economics, which influences psychology and then biology and then we are full circle, so I could see how that could lead into a very long type of tautology where everything is influencing everything and it’s hard to define where the beginning point is, but ultimately, I suppose Wittenstein’s theory of language is the basis ofhow this influence occurs

[MIKE Watkins Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pros: 1. The book itself has that rare "it" factor that you look for in a so called legal thinking/intro to law book. The "it" factor that you look for in a book that can help give you that edge in law school. That book that literally changes the way you look, analyze, and understand the law. If you're looking for such a book.....this is one of those books.

1A. The author is clearly gifted....his ability to take one analogy, break it down, pause it to explain something, go back to it and break it down, and then bring it back up in another chapter but simply change the focus to another area of that analogy that you missed....is amazing.

Cons:

1. Some chapters like "supressed markets" are boring and hard to grasp because they go all over the place. Some chapters like this one would have been better off sticking with one or two examples instead of 4+.

2. Each chapter has the same excact layout and format. In a short or middle length sized book that's ok, but in a book like this where it's 300 pages but becuase you have to pause, take notes, and because the book has so many words on each page it takes the time of a 600 page book to read you need to change the format up.

3. Some chapters, the last 3 or so chapters in particular, needed pictures for the equations they were going into details about. It's better to describe a mathematical equation by showing an equation not explaining it with words.

[Denny]

This was a very insightful book as someone more interested in public policy school than law school. The section on incentives alone is valuable for anyone looking for a basic understanding legal reasoning and the structure of laws in general.

Having taken courses on game theory and behavioral econ during undergrad, the sections dedicated to those topics were a bit dry for me. That said, the sections were filled with numerous examples of how these game theory/behavior problems related DIRECTLY to law and public policy. And that's where I see the value of this book. If this had been used as a textbook for, say, a polisci methods 101 class, we'd have a lot more undergrads who care about formal theory and methodology (since most at my school were more interested in becoming lawyers than political scientists).

[Esteban Bernal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read book to understand the analytics behind legal reasoning, that is, what judges, regulators, legislators, litigants, and other players think about (implicitly or explicitly) when making legal decisions.

As the author explains at the outset, the goal of the book is not to learn about the specific rules that govern our society but to understand what is behind those rules. What is the purpose of some of those rules and most importantly, what problems is the law seeking to solve through them.

It is a captivating book that deals with economics, psychology, intuitive thinking, jurisprudence and more. All of this as it relates to the law. I am very happy that I came across this book and will carry many of its ideas forward with me as I attend law school beginning in 2024.

[Adrian Halpert · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Legal Analyst is a must read for any law student or legal practicioner. Farnsworth offers some great tools to aid in legal thinking and analysis, drawing on game theory, psychology and evidentiary analyses to name a few. My only complaint would be that he draws mainly from civil / contract law, and very little from criminal (which is of greater interest to me), but the ideas he discusses can be easily applied to any branch of law.
Great stuff!
4.5/5 Stars

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was recommended to me by a law professor as the book he would have liked to have read before starting law school. It worked as a general introduction to the underlying principles and logical assumptions that drive legal arguments and decision making. But I have to admit it didn't make 1L any easier.

[Joseph]

Had to read part of it for law school, but.i enjoyed what I had read so much that I had to read the rest over Winter Break. It's a great read, especially those interested in how law is shaped by economics and psychology. Even if you're just curious why law decides certain ways without getting to deep into law reading, this book is a good one for you.

[Alex Gordon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is well written and extremely helpful

[Doren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book that satisfies one's curiousity about the topic.

[Sophie Xue · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was deciding between going to law school or business school, a friend at Yale Law recommended this book. Loved it. Very helpful as well.

[Abe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb all around! I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoyed Freakonomics.

[Ahmad Rashad · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book gave me some insight on how laws work
it is sad that justice is not what the law seek, instead prosperity, even if few would pay the bill, at least that's what I understood from this book

[Ginger Gritzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't call this a fun read, but it certainly was enriching.

[Haley Grothaus · Rating 5 out of 5]

this made me more smart

[Lexi Mag · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating. Dense. I would suggest the written copy over the audible just because there's sooooo much to think about while reading.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4✨ | Date finished: 27th November 2024

[Yusuf Hacking · Rating 5 out of 5]

At times the law and economics stuff gets a bit boring through abstraction, but it is very thoughtful and useful.