As a lawyer who studied the public choice theory<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice_theory" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice_theory</a><p>perspective on legislation when I was in law school, I recommend that everyone interested in public policy take a look at this article.<p>After edit: the other member of my household who is a HN participant and I were just discussing the submitted article. That reminded me to mention here that although many states require judges to be "learned in the law" (which in practice is interpreted as "admitted to the bar," which in turn means in most places to be someone who has passed a bar examination, which is only open to someone who has completed an accredited law degree), there is no such requirement for the United States Supreme Court. In principle, the Chief Justice of the United States could be a nonlawyer. A President would have to dare to appoint such a person, and the Senate would have to vote to confirm the appointment, but if nine suitable nonlawyers came forward to accept the appointment and were confirmed, the Supreme Court could consist entirely of nonlawyers. (If that happened, they might rely heavily on the help of their law clerks, but they might make some rather different decisions from any previous Court.)