Native Speakers of the LawMike Rappaport

Larry Solum quotes from a Richard Posner review of Steven Shavell’s new book on Law and Economics:

It is curious but true that, although economics is intellectually moresophisticated than law and though there is recognition of this point isclose to the heart of economic analysis of law a considerableisomorphism between law and economics, no one, however bright, who isnot a lawyer can get the law quite right. Law is like a language thatyou have to be a native speaker of to speak correctly.

I used to do some law and economics, and felt like many other law professors that I didn’t really have a sufficiently technical understanding of the economics.  But I did used to argue that that was not fatal: economists didn’t really understand the law.  Unfortunately for me, though, there are many people who have degrees in both and understand both well.