September 2, 2010 4:06PM 

# David Friedman: The Machinery of Criminal Defense 

By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) 

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I once went to another Washington think tank to hear an advertised lecture by David Friedman, “author and professor of law and economics at Santa Clara University.” The great libertarian author of *The Machinery of Freedom*, speaking at a liberal-establishment Washington think tank? Cool. So I showed up early, took a seat by the wall, and was crushingly disappointed to discover that the speaker was in fact some *other* David Friedman, who was decidedly no libertarian, and I was pinned in and couldn’t leave. They told me later that an intern got the wrong bio off the web. Always blame the intern.

So anyway, I just wanted Cato-at-Liberty readers to notice that our [new paper](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12106) “Reforming Indigent Defense: How Free Market Principles Can Help to Fix a Broken System,” which Tim Lynch wrote about [here](https://www.cato.org/reforming-indigent-defense/), is in fact co-written by “[the real David Friedman](http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Academic.html),” the son of Milton Friedman, the professor of law and economics with a Ph.D. in physics, the author of the early libertarian classic *The Machinery of Freedom* as well as such other books as *Hidden Order*, *Law’s Order*, and *Future Imperfect* — yes, *that* David Friedman.

So even if you didn’t think you were interested in the topic of voucherizing legal aid for indigent defendants, just consider that David Friedman is always interesting.

##### Related Tags 

[Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

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