Thus far I have attempted to describe what social science might offer to law and what law might offer to social science. In each case some caveats were offered. At this point, further warning flags should be posted.

A survey of child custody cases and commentary yields the following, most depressing conclusions: everyone agrees that awarding custody is one of the trial judge's most delicate responsibilities; almost everyone is unhappy with prevailing substantive and procedural doctrines; yet no one seems to believe that the situation can be improved substantially. Too many appellate opinions begin, or end, with a plaintive plea for the reader's sympathy.

Sargent Shriver, the first Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, forecast at the outset that the lawyers in the legal services program would come to be recognized as the heavy artillery in the war on poverty (Shriver, 1966: 219). Shriver's success as a soothsayer was considerable. Poverty lawyers have proven to be among the most effective weapons in the war on poverty's arsenal. In practice it seems that many of the lawyer's skills and much of his legal training are helpful and even powerful when directed at the legal problems of the poor. Nevertheless, one wonders how much credit for the poverty lawyer's success can properly be attributed to OEO's leadership. There never really was reason to doubt the lawyer's fire power. But the record reveals much reason to doubt whether his potential power has been used efficiently and with maximum efficacy. An examination of OEO's belated efforts to orient the local legal services offices toward more meaningful targets leads to the belief that the strength of the program lies in the professional training and prodigious labors of the lawyers in the field and its weakness lies in the manner in which OEO has constructed and conducted the legal services program.

The provision of legal services without regard for the individual's ability to pay has long been a tradition of the American legal profession. It is a basic tenet of a democratic society that the protection of individual rights cannot turn on a matter of income or social class, since justice then becomes a luxury, available to a privileged few. Our society has met this problem largely by relying on the sense of professional responsibility of private practitioners and by developing legal aid societies.

In 1965 the Minnesota legislature created the office of State Public Defender and authorized the establishment of defender systems in the ten judicial districts which comprise the state judicial system. District systems were to be established upon decision of the district judges for each given district. The period from 1966 through 1967 saw the expansion of the system from two original districts to six additional judicial districts. This study describes and explains the effects of the introduction of this indigent defense system upon the criminal law process in the state of Minnesota. What follows essentially focuses on a problem of institutionalization, i.e., the transformation of an idea or concept into a working institution and its subsequent manifest or latent consequences. (On this problem, see Warriner [1962] and Eisenstadt [1957].) The primary task of this study is the determination of the changes effected by the introduction of the system upon the variables by which the criminal law process is statistically monitored. The replacement of the appointive counsel system by the public defender system assumes a change in the operative goals of the defense system. The statistics which monitor the criminal law process are analyzed for changes which indicate a modification in those operative goals. Particular emphasis is placed on the discovery of trends in the process variables which indicate goals pointing to a maximization of due process values. We also undertake a comparative analysis which emphasizes differentiation congruent with increasing experience under the public defender system. Finally, the study analyzes reaction to the system on the part of personnel involved in the adversary process affecting indigent accused.