I also feel that law professors can perform a vital role in the intellectual ecosystem by trying to get a perspective on problems that is based on a diverse array of disciplines. Someone who solely looks at a issue from an economic, or anthropological, or [name your social science] viewpoint, may miss important aspects of it. Ideally the law prof who seeks some policy relevance can look at a broad array of research and try to bring the best of it to bear.

This will always provoke the objection: “you’re not a real academic, you have no detachment, you’re just trying to write a brief to advance your preferred policy positions.” One answer to this is to follow McCloskey’s calls for pluralistic methodology in economics. Another is to return the name-calling favor and to note that the specializers themselves may be adopting narrow focuses (or methods) that make their pet concerns salient and marginalize more compelling ones.