The University of Chicago Press, 2007
Summary
Written by well-respected Boston University School of Law Professor Ward Farnsworth, The Legal Analyst provides a readily digestible survey of various legal tools for thinking about the law. These legal tools, such as hindsight bias or slippery slopes, are important arguments employed in legal scholarship, but also in the practice of law.
Why Law Students (or those Preparing for Law School) Should Read The Legal Analyst
Content: The Legal Analyst provides a shortcut to understanding the tools of legal thought, especially those adopted from other fields including game theory, psychology, and economics. Understanding the structure and recognizing the presence of these various types of arguments will aid in comprehending legal scholarship (both the written and in-class varieties) and provides a toolkit of arguments that can be employed to score points on exams and to provide reasoned support or possible counterarguments to positions taken in legal writing (think law review). Understanding these tools may prove particularly useful in law careers, whether that is in actual practice or in academic law.
Organization: Each deliberately short section describes one legal tool with accompanying illustrative examples drawn often drawn from cases, relevance to legal trends, and a source list that directs the reader to further reading. The effective organization scheme emphasizes reader understanding and retention of each tool above cohesion and comprehensiveness.
Writing: Considering that the legal toolkit is well described within the law review literature, the beauty of Farnsworth’s book is not the compilation of these tools, but the ease with which Farnsworth is able to explain these concepts. The seamless use of examples throughout the text is only overshadowed by the uncanny placement; every time the reader thinks to him or herself, “I could really use an example here,” the next few paragraphs provide case-based explanations tailored perfectly to the concept at hand. The writing is both easily understood and a pleasure to read.
As an aside, the annotation (endnotes) is unobtrusive, yet instructive and the work includes substantial author and subject indexes.
Three Criticisms
Economics Bias: Although Farnsworth’s work attempts to provide a broad coverage of law-related fields, from cognitive psychology to game theory, it reads more as a summary of the tools of the law and economics movement. This particular approach can be a bit tiring at times, overwhelming the discussion of other fields, like psychology, even in their own designated parts; however, given the importance of economics in legal scholarship, this certainly can be defended based upon the law and economics movement’s importance.
Choice of Emphasis: This issue of relative importance seems to be forgotten when it comes to allocating length of discussion to legal tools. Certainly, some legal tools are encountered more often, considered more fundamental, or have greater power than others, but the reader cannot comprehend this as each section is roughly the same length. For example, the rules-standards distinction is a critical point in understanding the law, yet the discussion seems somewhat superficial due to the limited length of the section. This is remedied, in part, by the references to more in-depth works, but the work would still benefit from more thorough in-text explanation of more prevalent concepts.
Questions at the End of Each Chapter: One important aspect of the legal toolkit described by Farnsworth that seems neglected throughout is the recognition and application of these tools to the law. What are the hallmarks of stag hunts? How can we determine when an information cascade may be at work? Also, this book may be aided by problems where the reader is asked to apply each tool to a particular situation, but this may have reduced the appeal to those outside of legal education.
One Sentence Conclusion
Ultimately, this relatively inexpensive explanation of keys tools in legal analysis should become a standard in the libraries of students preparing for and attending law school.
The Legal Analyst web site
Ward Farnsworth's web site
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