An Economic Approach to Legal Procedure and Judicial Administration

TLDR: In this paper, a positive economic theory of the legal system is presented, and the authors attempt to explain the procedural rules and practices that give the system its distinctive structure and to predict the effects of changes in one part of the system on the other parts.

Abstract: requires an understanding of the operating principles of the system for resolving legal disputes. This article seeks to advance that understanding by means of the powerful tools of economic theory. Although it builds on recent articles by William M. Landes and by the present writer,' it is more than an extension of the previous work. That work took for granted the rules of procedure that provide the framework of the legal dispute-resolution system; the emphasis was on how plaintiffs (mainly prosecutors) and defendants maximize utility within its constraints. The present article attempts to explain the procedural rules and practices that give the system its distinctive structure and to predict the effects of changes in one part of the system on the other parts. It thus adds to the literature (as yet small) that is developing a positive economic theory of the institutions of the legal system.2 Part I explains the basic analytical framework of the article. The purpose of