A book on an interesting topic, written more for the layman than for the specialist (but with references for the latter), Law's Order introduces the basic economic aparatus necessary for the analysis of the effects of different legal rules. Friedman (more than his father) is an especially good author for people who quickly dismiss economic models as overly simplistic, both because he is aware of the real limitations of simplified models and because he defends the real benefit in understanding that they often provide. Here he applies his clarity to the questions of why the law is the way it is, and what impact its features have on its effects. Especially interesting to me were the discussions, near the end, of the legal systems in place in Iceland and England centuries ago, and how sets of social norms can function in place of legal rules, and be subject to the same analysis. Throughout the book he implies that the book is meant as something of a rejoinder to Posner's theory that common law is economically efficient, but this becomes a small dog being wagged by the broad discussion needed to bring most of his readers up to speed; when he does take on Posner's thesis directly, it is interesting, respectful, and well-reasoned, but is only a small part of the appeal of the book, which is based more on the survey that precedes it.

It's a pretty good book...
Oh and one big real why I even decided to write a review is that David Friedman is actually the son of Milton Friedman. But that is not mentioned anywhere in the book, which is a nice gesture of anti-nepotism. Anyhow back to the merits of the book. The topics are quite easy to grasp and very interesting. After reading this you may want to go check out game theory and the law which is more specialized. The book is well written and we use it for our economics analysis of law class.

This book, as its title suggests, is on the ECONOMICS of law. And as Dr. Friedman skillfully illustrates in the text, economics has a great deal to say about both the theory and application of law. In particular anyone interested in understanding how modern systems of law arose will find fascinating information in this book that isn't often discussed in your run-of-the-mill law, history, or economics courses. This is just the sort of information that is important to achieving a better understanding of the structure of legal systems, yet is, perhaps necessarily, left out of most courses in law (or history or economics) because it doesn't neatly fit into any one category.

The use of economic tools and ideas to analyze and understand legal systems is a relatively new idea. Yet as you'll discover when reading this book, it is a very GOOD idea. One that yields immediate and satisfying results. The book places modern legal systems in their proper historical context. It compares private and public methods of handling a variety of legal issues and disputes.

What does economics have to do with law? Suppose legislators propose that armed robbers receive life imprisonment. Editorial pages applaud them for getting tough on crime. Constitutional lawyers raise the issue of cruel and unusual punishment. Legal philosophers ponder questions of justness. An economist, on the other hand, observes that making the punishment for armed robbery the same as that for murder encourages the muggers to kill their victims (since they are less likely to be caught if there are no surviving witnesses). This is the cut-to-the-chase quality that makes economics not only applicable to the interpretation of law, but beneficial to its crafting.

Buy this book or steal your friend's copy. It, along with David Friedman's other works, are well worth reading.