Allan Christelow once remarked that court documents have the potential to provide a more thorough and unbiased picture of society than most other sources. Anna Würth's study of judicial procedures at a court in a poor Sanעani neighborhood would appear to give credence to this observation. The book covers an important stage in Yemeni post-revolutionary history embracing republican state consolidation, unification of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY), and the Islamist challenge. It is based on more than one hundred fifty court cases, legal manuals, and unpublished draft statutes; “participant observation” at the court; historical chronicles; newspaper articles; and interviews with jurists and petitioners. Echoing the work of Mir-Hosseini and Messick, Würth conceives of law and legal practice as mutually constituting rather than separate domains. The book is divided into two main parts, each subdivided into two or more chapters. The first part deals with the norms governing the application of family law by the courts, describing court procedures during the period of Ottoman rule and the Hamid al-Din dynasty. Most chapters are devoted to an analysis of legal reform as part of state transformation from the 1970s to unification in 1990. Readers are offered a valuable overview of the diverse family laws of 1974, 1978, and 1992, their political objectives, and the debates surrounding them. The second part centers on the administration of justice at the court between 1983 and 1995.