¹ Following the general practice of those who write about the courts in Britain, I am restricting my attention to the judicial system of England and Wales, which I will refer to as ‘English’. The judicial systems of Scotland and Northern Ireland are largely separate from that of England. See Morrison, Fred L., Courts and the Political Process in England (Beverly Hills, Calif, and London: Sage Publications, 1973), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

² See Patterson, Samuel C., ‘Review Article: The British House of Commons as a Focus for Political Research’, British Journal of Political Science, III (1973), 363–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Some of this scholarship is discussed in a recent examination of work on legal sociology from an historical perspective. See Campbell, C. M. and Wiles, Paul, ‘The Study of Law in Society in Britain’, Law and Society Review, X (1976), 547–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ I am not, however, alone in my view. See Robertson, David, ‘Logic, Language, Law and Democratic Theory’ (Center for Law and Behavioral Science, University of Wisconsin, 1976).Google Scholar

⁵ Punnett, R. M., British Government and Politics, 2nd edn. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971).Google Scholar

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⁷ Morrison, , Courts and the Political Process, pp. 223–4.Google Scholar

⁸ Blumberg, Abraham, Criminal Justice (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1970).Google Scholar

⁹ Murphy, Walter F., Elements of Judicial Strategy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Jacob, Herbert, Justice in America, 2nd edn. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972), p. 31.Google Scholar

¹¹ Morrison, , Courts and the Political Process, esp. pp. 218–19Google Scholar; Stevens, R. B. and Yamey, B. S., The Restrictive Practices Court (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965), pp. 23–7.Google Scholar

¹² Jackson, R. M., The Machinery of Justice in England, 6th edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 171–3.Google Scholar

¹³ Goodhart, A. L., ‘Legal Procedure and Democracy’, Cambridge Law Journal (1964), 51–9, p. 52CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Fellman, David, The Defendant's Rights Under English Law (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966).Google Scholar

¹⁴ Morrison, , Courts and the Political Process, pp. 112–13Google Scholar; Laski, Harold J., Studies in Law and Politics (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1932), pp. 202–21.Google Scholar

¹⁵ In 1972, approximately two million civil proceedings were commenced in England and about an equal number of criminal prosecutions initiated. Judicial Statistics, England and Wales, 1972 (London; HMSO, Cmnd. 5333, 1973), p. 2Google Scholar; Criminal Statistics, England and Wales, 1972 (London: HMSO, Cmnd. 5402, 1973). pp. 20, 110.Google Scholar

¹⁶ McGregor, O. R., Blom-Cooper, Louis and Gibson, Colin, Separated Spouses: A Study of the Matrimonial Jurisdiction of Magistrates'; Courts (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1970).Google Scholar

¹⁷ This survey will be limited almost entirely to work published in the past decade. Excluded from the survey will be several bodies of work relevant to the judicial process: materials on the substance of the law and on legal procedure; studies of the tribunals; and government reports on the court system.

¹⁸ Jackson, , Machinery of Justice.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Jackson, , Machinery of Justice, p. xii.Google Scholar

²⁰ Abel-Smith, Brian and Stevens, Robert, In Search of Justice: Society and the Legal System (London: Allen Lane the Penguin Press, 1968)Google Scholar. See also Abel-Smith, and Stevens, , Lawyers and the Courts: A Sociological Study of the English Legal System 1750–1965 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967).Google Scholar

²¹ Abel-Smith, and Stevens, , In Search of Justice, p. 352.Google Scholar

²² Abel-Smith, and Stevens, , In Search of Justice, pp. 251–5.Google Scholar

²³ Morrison, , Courts and the Political Process.Google Scholar

²⁴ Morrison, , Courts and the Political Process, pp. 72–89.Google Scholar

²⁵ Also worthy of note is the imaginative work of Carlen on magistrates' courts. See Carlen, Pat, Magistrates Courts (London: Martin Robinson, 1976)Google Scholar. Some good research on bail policies has been published, most recently in Bases, Nan C. and Smith, Michael E., ‘A Study of Bail Applications Through the Official Solicitor to the Judge in Chambers by Brixton Prisoners in 1974’, Criminal Law Review (1976), 541–56.Google Scholar

²⁶ Dell, Suzanne, Silent in Court: The Legal Representation of Women Who Went to Prison (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1971).Google Scholar

²⁷ See, respectively, Zander, Michael, ‘Access to a Solicitor in the Police Station’, Criminal Law Review (1972), 342–50Google Scholar; Zander, , ‘Unrepresented Defendants in the Criminal Courts’, Criminal Law Review (1969), 632–45Google Scholar; Zander, and, ‘Legal Advice and Criminal Appeals: A Survey of Prisoners, Prisons and Lawyers’, Criminal Law Review (1972), 132–73.Google Scholar

²⁸ See the discussion of this debate in Heumann, Milton, ‘A Note on Plea Bargaining and Case Pressure’, Law and Society Review, IX (1975), 515–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁹ Thomas, Paul, ‘An Exploration of Plea Bargaining’, Criminal Law Review (1969), 69–79Google Scholar; Thomas, , ‘Plea Bargaining and the Turner Case’, Criminal Law Review (1970), 559–66Google Scholar; Seifman, Robert D., ‘The Rise and Fall of Cain’, Criminal Law Review (1976), 556–60.Google Scholar

³⁰ Davis, Anthony, ‘Sentences for Sale: A New Look at Plea Bargaining in England and America’, Criminal Law Review (1971), 150–61, 218–28 (quotation from p. 228).Google Scholar

³¹ McCabe, Sarah and Purves, Robert, By-Passing the Jury: A Study of Changes of Plea and Directed Acquittals in Higher Courts (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972).Google Scholar

³² McCabe, Sarah and Purves, Robert, ‘Jury Research in England and the United States’, British Journal of Criminology, XIV (1974), 276–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The major report of the Chicago Jury Project's work is Kalven, Harry Jr. and Zeisel, Hans, The American Jury (Boston: Little, Brown, 1966).Google Scholar

³³ LSE Jury Project, ‘Juries and the Rules of Evidence’, Criminal Law Review (1973), 208–23.Google Scholar

³⁴ Sealy, A. P. and Cornish, W. R., ‘Jurors and Their Verdicts’, Modern Law Review, XXXVI (1973), 496–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁵ See, respectively, McCabe, Sarah and Purves, Robert, The Jury at Work: A Study of a Series of Jury Trials in Which the Defendant was Acquitted (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972)Google Scholar; and McCabe, and Purves, , The Shadow Jury at Work: An Account of a Series of Deliberations and Verdicts Where ‘Shadow’ Juries Were Present During Actual Trials (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974).Google Scholar

³⁶ Hood, Roger, Sentencing the Motoring Offender: A Study of Magistrates' Views and Practices (London: Heinemann, 1972)Google Scholar. See also Hood, , Sentencing in Magistrates' Courts: A Study in Variations of Policy (London: Stevens and Sons, 1962).Google Scholar

³⁷ Lemon, Nigel, ‘Training, Personality and Attitude as Determinants of Magistrates' Sentencing’, British Journal of Criminology, XIV (1974), 34–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁸ Shea, Michael A., ‘A Study of the Effect of the Prosecutor's Choice of Charge on Magistrates' Sentencing Behaviour’, British Journal of Criminology, XIV (1974), 269–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁹ Ford, Peter, Advising Sentencers: A Study of Recommendations Made by Probation Officers to the Courts (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1972).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Lying on the periphery of judicial-process concerns but very much worthy of mention are a series of books about the functioning of particular areas of law in society, which include some discussion of the courts' roles. See Elliott, D. W. and Street, Harry, Road Accidents (London: Allen Lane the Penguin Press, 1968)Google Scholar; and Wedderburn, K. W., The Worker and the Law, 2nd edn. (Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin Books, 1971).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Meador, Daniel J., Criminal Appeals: English Practices and American Reforms (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1973).Google Scholar

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⁴³ McGregor, et al. , Separated SpousesGoogle Scholar. On a related subject, see Elston, Elizabeth, Jane Fuller and Murch, Mervyn, ‘Judicial Hearings of Undefended Divorce Petitions’, Modern Law Review, XXXVIII (1975), 609–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁴ McGregor, et al. , Separated Spouses, p. 128.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Stevens, and Yamey, , The Restrictive Practices Court.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Stevens, and Yamey, , The Restrictive Practices Court, pp. 157–92.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Blom-Cooper, Louis and Drewry, Gavin, Final Appeal: A Study of the House of Lords in Its Judicial Capacity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See the discussion of the background-decision linkage in Blom-Cooper, and Drewry, , Final Appeal, pp. 7–8.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Blom-Cooper, and Drewry, , Final Appeal, pp. 360–74.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Two English legal scholars have discussed this pattern and the broadening of interests reflected in recent work in legal sociology; see Campbell, and Wiles, , ‘Law in Society in Britain,’ pp. 553–5.Google Scholar

⁵¹ There are some exceptions in the American literature; see, for instance, Shapiro, Martin, The Supreme Court and Administrative Agencies (New York: Free Press, 1968), pp. 12–103.Google Scholar

⁵² See Murphy, Walter F. and Tanenhaus, Joseph, The Study of Public Law (New York: Random House, 1972).Google Scholar

⁵³ Blumberg, , Criminal JusticeGoogle Scholar; Skolnick, Jerome, ‘Social Control in the Adversary System’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, XI (1967), 52–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pat Carlen is an English student of criminal courts who has taken a theoretically-based approach; see Carlen, , Magistrates Courts.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Representative of a useful body of legal literature on structure and procedure is Walker, R. J. and Walker, M. G., The English Legal System, 3rd edn. (London: Butterworths, 1972).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Abel-Smith, and Stevens, , In Search of Justice, p. 66Google Scholar; Zander, Michael, Cases and Materials on the English Legal System (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), p. 330.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Ehrenzweig, Albert A., ‘Reimbursement of Counsel Fees and the Great Society’, in Broek, Jacobusten, ed., The Law of the Poor (Scranton, Pa.: Chandler, 1966), pp. 468–76.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Report of the Royal Commission on Assize and Quarter Sessions 1966–1969 (London: HMSO, Cmnd. 4153, 1969), p. 78.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ In addition to the studies cited earlier, see Zander, Michael, Lawyers and the Public Interest: A Study in Restrictive Practices (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968)Google Scholar; and Zander, Michael and Glasser, Cyril, ‘A Study in Representation,’ New Law Journal, CXVII (1967), 815–16.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Smigel, Erwin O., The Wall Street Lawyer: Professional Organization Man? (Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1969)Google Scholar; Handler, Joel, The Lawyer and His Community: The Practicing Bar in a Middle-Sized City (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Some useful data on the legal profession in Birmingham are presented in White, Richard, ‘The Distasteful Character of Litigation for Poor Persons’, Juridical Review, XX (1975), 233–51Google Scholar. A full report of the Birmingham research is given in Bridges, Lee et al. , Legal Services in Birmingham (Birmingham: Institute of Judicial Administration, University of Birmingham, 1975).Google Scholar

⁶¹ American discussions of these conflicts include Blumberg, Abraham, ‘The Practice of Law as a Confidence Game’, Law and Society Review, 1 (1967), 15–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rosenthal, Douglas E., Lawyer and Client: Who's in Charge? (New York: Russell Sage, 1974), pp. 95–116.Google Scholar

⁶² Some useful material on prosecutors' functions is contained in Devlin, Patrick, The Criminal Prosecution in England (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1958).Google Scholar

⁶³ See Davis, , ‘Sentences for Sale’, pp. 221–4.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Paterson, A. A., ‘Judges: A Political Elite?’, British Journal of Law and Society, 1 (1974), 118–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁶⁵ Chase, Harold W., Federal Judges: The Appointing Process (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972)Google Scholar; Grossman, Joel B., Lawyers and Judges: The ABA and the Politics of Judicial Selection (New York: Wiley, 1965).Google Scholar

⁶⁶ The behavior of magistrates on the bench also merits further study because of their position, unusual by American standards, as ‘amateur judges’.

⁶⁷ Laski, , Studies in Law and Politics, pp. 163–80.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Morrison, , Courts and the Political Process, pp. 72–88Google Scholar; Tate, C. Neal, ‘Paths to the Bench in Britain: A Quasi-Experimental Study of the Recruitment of a Judicial Elite’, Western Political Quarterly, XXVIII (1975), 108–29.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Abel-Smith, and Stevens, , In Search of Justice, pp. 174–85Google Scholar; Morrison, , Courts and the Political Process, pp. 63–4, 88.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ The best existing work on the subject probably is Wilcox, A. F., The Decision to Prosecute (London: Butterworths, 1972).Google Scholar

⁷¹ An American model is Cole, George F., ‘The Decision to Prosecute’, Law and Society Review, IV (1970), 313–43.Google Scholar

⁷² See Sarat, Austin and Grossman, Joel B., ‘Courts and Conflict Resolution: Problems in the Mobilization of Adjudication’, American Political Science Review, LXIX (1975), 1200–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷³ Of the English scholarship related to this subject, a particularly interesting example is Beale, Hugh and Dugdale, Tony, ‘Contracts Between Businessmen: Planning and the Use of Contractual Remedies’, British Journal of Law and Society, 11 (1975), 45–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷⁴ By ‘political’ litigation I mean litigation undertaken to obtain general judicial policies rather than individual gains; admittedly, both conceptually and empirically the distinction between political and other litigation is not a sharp one.

⁷⁵ Hakman, Nathan, ‘Lobbying the Supreme Court-An Appraisal of “Political Science Folklore”’, Fordham Law Review, XXXV (1966), 15–50.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Meador, , Criminal Appeals, pp. 44–70.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Goldman, Sheldon and Jahnige, Thomas P., The Federal Courts as a Political System, 2nd edn. (New York: Harper and Row, 1976)Google Scholar; Rohde, David W. and Spaeth, Harold J., Supreme Court Decision Making (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976).Google Scholar

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⁷⁹ See Atkins, Burton M. and Green, Justin J., ‘Consensus on the United States Courts of Appeals: Illusion or Reality?’, American Journal of Political Science, XX (1976), 735–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and McIver, John P., ‘Scaling Judicial Decisions: The Panel Decisionmaking Process of the U.S. Courts of Appeals’, American Journal of Political Science, XX (1976), 749–61.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Kalven, and Zeisel, , The American Jury.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Much of the American work concerned with civil decision making focuses upon small claims courts. See Yngvesson, Barbara and Hennessey, Patricia, ‘Small Claims, Complex Disputes: A Review of the Small Claims Literature’, Law and Society Review, IX (1975), 219–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸² See Green, Edward, Judicial Attitudes in Sentencing (New York: St Martin's Press, 1961).Google Scholar

⁸³ See, for instance, Wanner, Craig, ‘The Public Ordering of Private Relations, Part Two: Winning Civil Court Cases’, Law and Society Review, IX (1975), 293–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸⁴ Walker, Nigel and McCabe, Sarah, Crime and Insanity in England, Vol. 2: New Solutions and New Problems (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1973), pp. 113–204.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Wasby, Stephen L., The Impact of the United States Supreme Court: Some Perspectives (Homewood, Ill.: Dorsey Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Becker, Theodore L. and Feeley, Malcolm M., eds. The Impact of Supreme Court Decisions, 2nd edn. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).Google Scholar

⁸⁶ One unsystematic discussion of police response to the Rules is contained in Williams, Glanville, ‘Questioning by the Police: Some Practical Considerations’, Criminal Law Review (1960), 325–46.Google Scholar