Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T15:29:06.889Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The role of legal intermediaries in the dispute pyramid: inequalities before the French legal system

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2021

Aude Lejeune Open the ORCID record for Aude Lejeune [Opens in a new window]  and
Alexis Spire
Aude Lejeune*
Affiliation:
CNRS, CERAPS, University of Lille, France
Alexis Spire
Affiliation:
CNRS, IRIS, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper shows that social inequalities are cumulative and occur at each stage of the dispute pyramid, from the identification of a conflict through to satisfaction with its outcome. Based on a large and original survey on ordinary people's representations of and practices within the legal system in France (N = 2,660), our study finds that an individual's contact, or lack of contact, with a legal intermediary, who may be a legal professional or a non-legal professional, has a very significant impact on the decision to take a case to court. Contact with a legal intermediary also influences the individual's satisfaction with the outcome, but not in the same way for all plaintiffs: income is a more determining factor in satisfaction with the outcome in cases where the judge makes a decision than in cases where a solution is found outside the courtroom.

Keywords

Franceinequalitylegal mobilisationoccupational groupcivil justicelegal intermediaries
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 455 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abel, RL (1989) Comparative sociology of legal professions. In Abel, RL and Lewis, PSC (eds), Lawyers in Society: Comparative Theories. Berkley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 80–153.Google Scholar
Albiston, C (1999) The rule of law and the litigation process: the paradox of losing by winning. Law & Society Review 33, 869–910.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Albiston, C, Edelman, L and Milligan, J (2014) The dispute tree and the legal forest. Annual Review of Law and Social Sciences 10, 105–131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bereni, L (2007) French feminists renegotiate republican universalism: the gender parity campaign. French Politics 5, 191–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bessière, C and Gollac, S (2017) Un entre-soi de possédant⋅es: Le genre des arrangements patrimoniaux dans les études notariales et cabinets d'avocat⋅es. Sociétés Contemporaines 108, 69–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bessière, C et al. (2018) ‘Faut sadapter aux cultures, Maître!’: la racialisation des publics de la justice familiale en France métropolitaine. Ethnologie française 169, 131–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biland, É (2019) Gouverner la vie privée: l'encadrement inégalitaire des séparations conjugales en France et au Québec. Lyon: ENS Éditions.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billows, S, Buchter, L and Pélisse, J (2019) Introduction: the microfoundations of legal intermediation in organizational contexts. In Sarat, A (ed.), Legal Intermediation. Bingley: Emerald Publishing.Google Scholar
Blankenburg, E (1994) The infrastructure for avoiding civil litigation: comparing cultures of legal behavior in the Netherlands and West Germany. Law & Society Review 28, 789–808.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boigeol, A and Willemez, L (2005) Fighting for survival: unification, differentiation and representation of the French Bar. In Felstiner, WLF (ed.), Reorganisation and Resistance: Legal Professions Confront a Changing World. Oxford/Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 41–65.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P (1979/1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Nice, R (trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P and Passeron, J-C (1990) Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Bumiller, K (1987) Victims in the shadow of the law: a critique of the model of legal protection. Signs 12, 421–439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlin, JE, Howard, J and Messinger, SL (1966) Civil justice and the poor: issues for sociological research. Law & Society Review 1, 9–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chapman, H and Frader, LL (2004) Race in France: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Politics of Difference. Oxford/New York, NY: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Chappe, V-A and Keyhani, N (2018) La fabrique d'un collectif judiciaire: La mobilisation des cheminots marocains contre les discriminations à la SNCF. Revue française de science politique 68, 7–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clermont, KM and Schwab, SJ (2004) How employment discrimination plaintiffs fare in federal court. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 1, 429–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collectif Onze (2013) Au tribunal des couples: Enquête sur des affaires familiales. Paris: Editions Odile Jacob.Google Scholar
Commaille, J (2015) A quoi nous sert le droit? Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Coulangeon, P (2015) Social mobility and musical tastes: a reappraisal of the social meaning of taste eclecticism. Poetics 51, 54–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curran, BA (1977) The Legal Needs of the Public: The Final Report of a National Survey. Chicago: American Bar Foundation.Google Scholar
Davis, S and Greenstein, T (2009) Gender ideology: components, predictors, and consequences. Annual Review of Sociology 35, 87–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engel, D and Munger, F (2003) Rights of Inclusion: Law and Identity in the Life Stories of Americans with Disabilities. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewick, P and Silbey, SS (1998) The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fassin, D (2002) L'invention française de la discrimination. Revue française de science politique 52, 403–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Felstiner, WLF, Abel, RL and Sarat, A (1981) The emergence and transformation of disputes: naming, blaming, claiming…. Law & Society Review 15, 631–654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García, Villegas M (2006) Comparative sociology of law: legal fields, legal scholarships, and social sciences in Europe and the United States. Law and Social Inquiry 31, 343–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Genn, H (1999) Paths to Justice: What People Do and Think About Going to Law. Oxford/Portland, OR: Hart Publishing.Google Scholar
Greene, SS (2016) Race, class, and access to civil justice. Iowa Law Review 101, 1234–1322.Google Scholar
Guillaume, C (2018a) Syndiquées: Défendre les intérêts des femmes au travail. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guillaume, C (2018b) When trade unions turn to litigation: ‘getting all the ducks in a row’. Industrial Relations Journal 49, 227–241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hajjat, A, Keyhani, N and Cécile, R (2019) Infraction raciste (non) confirmée: Sociologie du traitement judiciaire des infractions racistes dans trois tribunaux correctionnels. Revue française de science politique 69, 407–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hertogh, M (2004) A ‘European’ conception of legal consciousness: rediscovering Eugen Ehrlich. Journal of Law and Society 31, 457–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hugrée, C, Etienne, P and Spire, A (2015) Differences between public and private sectors employees following the managerial turn in European states. Matthews, T (trans.). Revue française de sociologie 56, 47–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Israël, L (2013) Legalise it! The rising place of law in French sociology. International Journal of Law in Context 9, 262–278.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kritzer, H (2008) To lawyer or not to lawyer? Is that the question? Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 5, 875–906.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kritzer, HM (1990) The Justice Broker: Lawyers and Ordinary Litigation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lejeune, A and Orianne, J-F (2014) The construction of workers' rights consciousness through legal intermediations: the case of employment discrimination in Belgium. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 14, 221–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lejeune, A and Ringelheim, J (2019) Workers with disabilities between legal change and persisting exclusion: how contradictory rights shape legal mobilization. Law & Society Review 53, 983–1015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, A-M (2005) Idle rights: employees’ rights consciousness and the construction of sexual harassment policies. Law & Society Review 39, 83–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marshall, AM and Barclay, S (2003) In their own words: how ordinary people construct the legal world. Law & Soc. Inquiry 28, 617–628.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merry, SE (1990) Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness among Working-class Americans. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Miller, R and Sarat, A (1981) Grievances, claims, and disputes: assessing the adversary culture. Law & Society Review 15, 525–566.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morrill, C et al. (2010) Legal mobilization in schools: the paradox of rights and race among youth. Law & Society Review 44, 651–694.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nielsen, LB (2000) Situating legal consciousness: experiences and attitudes of ordinary citizens about law and street harassment. Law & Society Review 34, 1055–1090.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nielsen, LB and Nelson, R (2005) Scaling the pyramid: a sociolegal model of employment discrimination litigation. In Nielsen, LB and Nelson, R (eds), Handbook of Employment Discrimination Research: Rights and Realities. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 3–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Barr, W and Conley, J (1988) Lay expectations of the civil justice system. Law & Society Review 22, 137–162.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pélisse, J (2017) Gérer les risques par le droit: Articulation et intermédiation dans les laboratoires de nanosciences en France et aux États-Unis. Droit et Société 96, 321–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pélisse, J (2019) Varieties of legal intermediaries: when non-legal professionals act as legal intermediaries. Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 81, 101–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinto, L (1989) Du ‘pépin’ au litige de consommation. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 76, 65–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pleasence, P, Balmer, N and Sandefur, RL (2016) Apples and oranges: an international comparison of the public's experience of justiciable problems and the methodological issues affecting comparative study. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 13, 50–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pleasence, P et al. (2006) Causes of Action: Civil Law and Social Justice. Norwich: TSO.Google Scholar
Plessz, M and Gojard, S (2015) Fresh is best? Social position, cooking, and vegetable consumption in France. Sociology 49, 172–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salin, F (2020) Inégalités sociales et judiciaires aux prud'hommes: le cas des référés. Droit et societe 3, 567–585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandefur, R (2008) Access to civil justice and race, class, and gender inequality. Annual Review of Sociology 34, 339–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sarat, A and Felstiner, WLF (1989) Lawyers and legal consciousness: law talk in the divorce lawyer's office. Yale Law Journal 98, 1663–1688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, M and Witz, A (eds) (1992) Gender and Bureaucracy. Oxford/Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Spire, A (2018) Résistances à l'impôt, attachement à l'Etat: Enquête sur les contribuables français. Paris: Le Seuil.Google Scholar
Spire, A and Weidenfeld, K (2011) Le tribunal administratif: une affaire d'initiés? Les inégalités d'accès à la justice et la distribution du capital procédural. Droit et Société 79, 689–713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talesh, S (2015) Legal intermediaries: how insurance companies construct the meaning of compliance with anti-discrimination laws. Law and Policy 37, 209–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talesh, S and Pélisse, J (2019) How legal intermediaries facilitate or inhibit social change. Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 79, 111–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, TR (1988) What is procedural justice? Criteria used by citizens to assess the fairness of legal procedures. Law & Society Review 22, 103–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willemez, L (2005) A political-professional commitment? French workers’ and unions’ lawyers as cause lawyers. In Sarat, A and Scheingold, S (eds), The Worlds Cause Lawyers Make: Structure and Agency in Legal Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 63–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar