What is the Economic Analysis of Law?

We earlier discussed whether Empirical Legal Studies is (or should be) a distinct subfield such as Law & Economics.  While I think ELS is still developing its identity, L&E has come a long way since Bentham, and later Coase, Becker, Calabresi and Posner.  For those of you who might be interested in a survey of L&E,  Polinsky and Shavell have written Economic Analysis of Law, a short entry for the forthcoming New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (Second Edition) introducing the topic and surveying the economic analysis of five primary fields of law: property law; liability for accidents; contract law; litigation; and public enforcement and criminal law.