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Theorizing about Trial Courts: Lawyers, Policymaking, and Tobacco Litigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Lynn Mather
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Abstract

What role do litigation and trial court decisions play in shaping policy? This article explores that question by examining recent litigation against tobacco manufacturers filed by state attorneys general, plaintiff lawyers in class actions, lawyers for cities, unions, health plans, individual smokers, and others. I suggest how this litigation contributed to agenda setting, new ways of defining the problem of tobacco and the policy alternatives, political mobilization, new legal norms, and new political and legal resources for opponents of tobacco. Addressing theoretical debates about the power of the courts to effect change, I distinguish between causal and constitutive arguments and suggest how both can be incorporated in social analysis.

Type
Symposium: Special Issue in Honor of Herbert Jacob
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 23 , Issue 4 , Fall 1998 , pp. 897 - 940
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 1998 

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