Law, Economics, and the Problem of Legal Culture

Abstract

It was not always this way. There was a time, not so very long ago, when lawyers treated economists with the same benign condescension they still bestow on practitioners of countless other specialties-biologists or statisticians or psychoanalysts. Doubtless, a lawyer might call on one of these specialists to respond to a question of legal significance, but there was never any question about who was in charge. Lawyers and judges, using their traditional techniques of interpretation and argument, determined when, where, and how nonlegal experts were to enter into the legal conversation: "Don't call us, we'll call you." If, for example, lawyers found economists useful when arguing about antitrust law, but useless when talking about torts, the economist was expected to know his place and speak only when spoken to.