Abstract
Everyone knows that lawyers are bad at math. Many fields of law, though — from explicitly number-focused practices like tax law and bankruptcy, to the less obviously numerical fields of family law and criminal defense — require interaction with, and sophisticated understandings of, numbers. To the extent that lawyers really are bad at math, why is that case? And what, if anything, should be done about it?
In this Article, I show the ways in which our acceptance of innumeracy harms our ability to practice and think about the law. On a practical level, we miscalculate numbers, oversimplify formulas, and, ultimately, misapply mathematical principles. These shortcomings, then, cause us to misunderstand and accept without question the assumptions and biases hiding in the shadows of numerical information, limiting our ability to fully represent our clients.
In an effort to begin to understand and move beyond the innumeracy present in the law, I distinguish between two types of innumeracy by lawyers: objective innumeracy (or a lack of math competence) and subjective innumeracy (or a lack of math confidence) and suggest that empirical research into the causes of legal innumeracy is needed. I conclude by providing suggestions for beginning to overcome innumeracy in the law in our roles as practitioners, lawmakers, law professors, and law students.
Repository Citation
Lisa Milot,
Illuminating Innumeracy
(2013),
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_artchop/899
63 Case W. Res. L. Rev. 763 (2013).
Originally uploaded at SSRN.