The pursuit of justice : law and economics of legal institutions / edited by Edward J. López ; foreword by Robert D. Tollison.

"Published in cooperation with The Independent Institute".

An introduction to the pursuit of justice / Edward J. López -- The rise of government law enforcement in England / Nicholas A. Curott and Edward P. Stringham -- Electoral pressures and the legal system : friends of foes? / Russell S. Sobel, Matt E. Ryan, and Joshua C. Hall -- Romancing forensics : legal failure in forensic science administration / Roger G. Koppl -- Judicial checks on corruption / Adriana S. Cordis -- Effects of judicial selection on criminal sentencing / Aleksandar Tomic and Jahn K. Hakes -- Economic development takings as government failure / Ilya Somin -- On the impossibility of "just compensation" when property is taken : an ethical and epistemic inquiry / John Brätland -- The lawyer-judge hypothesis / Benjamin H. Barton -- Class action rent extraction : theory and evidence of legal extortion / Jeffrey Haymond -- Cy pres and its predators / Charles N. W. Keckler -- Licensing lawyers : failure in the provision of legal services / Adam B. Summers.

"The Pursuit of Justice is a realistic yet hopeful analysis of how the law works in practice rather than in theory. The multi-chapter discussion recognizes that decision makers in the law -- judges, lawyers, juries, police, forensic experts and more -- respond systematically to the incentive structures with which they are confronted. In turn, incentives are a function of economic and institutional design. While these chapters shed light on how perverse incentives result in adverse outcomes, each chapter also suggests institutional reforms that would create better incentives within the legal system"--Provided by publisher.