In 1968 Renato Treves and J.F. Glastra van Loon edited Norms and Actions, a book of essays by indigenous scholars describing “law and society” research in their countries. No account of work in Britain was included, probably because there was so little activity in the field at that time. Yet only eight years later remarkable changes seem to have occurred. Courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level have proliferated; the number of empirical research projects is expanding; new centers and institutes have been established, series of books and a specialist journal have been launched, and financial and institutional support is provided by the universities, research councils, and through governmental initiatives. Not too long ago Lon Fuller (1967:1) suggested that the growth of interest in studying the operation of the law in American society had “come to assume the proportions of something like an intellectual movement.” Some commentators are tempted to perceive recent British developments in like fashion. But whatever the truth of Fuller's analysis of the American setting, it is dangerous to apply it to the situation in Britain. It would be reassuring to think that British academics simply discovered (rather later than elsewhere) a novel field of inquiry and boldly set out to explore it, and that the clamor of current activity indicates a vigorous beginning has been made. This would allow us to predict a healthy future and the rapid enhancement of our understanding of the nature and operation of law. It is just as plausible, however, to regard the current developments as fortuitous and perhaps transitional—the product of a curious concatenation of institutional, political and social influences.

I first went, as a student, into the field (Zululand, 1938) without the benefit of a clear theory of investigation of customary law. Llewellyn and Hoebel's Cheyenne Way (1941) had not yet appeared; and years later, when I ended my field-work among some Rhodesian Shona tribes (1952), Hoebel's classic The Law of Primitive Man, which further elaborated the theoretical angle of this kind of inquiry (1954: Ch. 1-4) had yet to be published. I did not, however, course entirely haphazardly through this field. I was trained in (mainly African) ethnography and (Roman Dutch) law, had learnt to read the decisions and interpretations of (South African) European courts on “native law and custom” with some critical reservation, and had found in works like Schapera's Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom (1938) — probably still the best of its kind as regards Africa — a suitable, systematic frame for the pursuit of my inquiries and the exposition of my findings. Moreover, my home background had acquainted me with some of the work and aims of Dutch scholars on Indonesian adatlaw who, inspired by the great jurist Van Vollenhoven, then seemed to be leading the field with their efforts to arrange the rich variety of Indonesian folk law and practice into a coherent system with a distinctly indigenous imprint. Van Vollenhoven's early and repeated insistence upon the need “het oostersche oostersch te zien” (to perceive that which is oriental through oriental eyes), instead of seeking to fit Indonesian concepts into the familiar categories and analytical schemas of Western jurisprudence, had obvious application also to the African field.

Using courtroom dialogs from actual court trials in China as data, this article analyzes an emerging “pragmatic discourse,” deployed by judges to assist, but at the same time to constrain divorcing women. Through questions, statements, rebuttals, and other interactional devices, Chinese judges define the premises that underpin the law's understanding of gender equality and women's welfare. By looking at how discourses are deployed by judges and litigants, we link micro linguistic practices to more general social forces and processes. Despite their honest effort to protect women's rights, Chinese judges often inadvertently reinforce and reproduce the patriarchal norm. The data demonstrate how the hegemonic patriarchal order reasserts itself in an institutional forum that is meant to promote gender equality. The interaction of the discourses also highlights the tensions in Chinese society and displays the effect of changing social environment on the legal operation.

White Americans, on average, do not support Black Lives Matter, while Black Americans generally express strong support. The lack of support among white Americans is striking, and we argue that it matters why this racial gap exists. Using a nationally representative survey collected during the crest of the first wave of widespread attention to the movement, we explore four potential explanations for interracial differences in feelings toward Black Lives Matter. These explanations reflect competing claims made by advocates and opponents of the movement and have distinct implications for understanding the meaning of these racial differences. Two explanations focus on attitudes toward the police, and two focus on racial prejudice. The results suggest that interracial differences in contact with the police mattered to views of the movement, though in opposite ways for white and Black Americans. Support for the movement among Black Americans was not motivated by an animosity toward the police. Ultimately, the lack of white support for Black Lives Matter was best explained by anti-Black animus and racial resentment, reflecting a concern about the threat this contemporary civil rights movement presents to the racial status quo.

The recent influx of police officers into US public schools has reshaped the context and frequency of children's interactions with police. Yet we know little about how the presence of these officers in schools impacts the legal socialization of students, and whether youth of color might be affected or socialized in different ways than white youth. In this study, we analyze data from interviews with school police officers as well as focus group data from school staff, parents, and students that shed light on how school police interact with youth. In particular, school police officers discussed their desire to build relationships with students that instill trust in police among students. Officers discussed their efforts to teach students that police should be trusted and relied on, and that negative views of policing and involvement with the justice system are the result of a negative news media and individual citizens' criminality, respectively. Importantly, officers discussed how they devote particular attention to imparting these lessons on youth of color and others who may see police in a negative light. We consider how these outreach efforts, what we call acting as police ambassadors, might have different impacts on youth of color compared to white youth, given existing racial disparities in interactions with police.

Despite a widespread assumption that divorce mediation and divorce lawyers are incompatible, lawyers do play active—if largely unexamined—roles in many mediation programs. This article reports on the work of lawyers in a state with mandatory mediation. We find that lawyers in Maine have generally embraced mediation because it helps them manage problems inherent in divorce practice. Mandated divorce mediation facilitates both settlement negotiation and trial preparation, permits client participation in decisionmaking without requiring lawyers to surrender control, provides a forum for resolving both legal and nonlegal issues, and promotes efficient case management.

Using court decisions, interviews with legal actors, and ethnographic observations, this paper analyzes the development of sexual identity classifications for sexual minorities seeking asylum in the United States and argues that the adjudication of such claims works to consolidate and regulate sexual identities but also creates possibilities for recognizing marginalized queer identities. Asylum seekers must prove their sexual identities, and immigration officials must classify claimants as belonging to a protected group. At the inception of queer asylum law in 1990, protected categories were highly circumscribed, but the indeterminacy of the law allowed advocates and asylum seekers to challenge existing categories and stake out new claims based on their sexualities. Against the backdrop of extant criticisms of the asylum process for queers, this paper suggests that the way asylum law has been elaborated, adapted, and interpreted, particularly in approximately the past decade, offers possibilities for making unique identity claims that are not recognized in existing scholarship.

This study compares the language in which South African and United States law represents the histories of indigenous peoples. South African political and legal language has linked denial of indigenous peoples' history with denial of rights to property. The language of the law in the United States recognizes prior history and prior possessory claims to land, although in the past this recognition did not stop the decimation of Native Americans. The contrast between the uses of history in the laws of two nations reveals how ideologies, language, and the law are intertwined in the determination of indigenous peoples' property rights.

What is the relationship between employment discrimination litigation and the relative earnings of blacks and whites in the United States? Do victories in court affect blacks' relative earnings? Are gains in earnings associated with legal victories enduring or temporary? Can litigation be an effective tactic in efforts at social reform? Data on plaintiff victories in employment discrimination cases decided by U.S. appellate courts from 1965 through 1985 show that victories are associated with significant and enduring increases in blacks' relative earnings. One implication is that at least in this area, the courts may bring about social reform.

Since the 1980s, there has been a significant rise in domestic and international efforts to enforce individual criminal accountability for human rights violations through trials, but we still lack complete explanations for the emergence of this trend and the variation observed in the use of human rights prosecutions in the world. In this article, we examine the role that procedural law has had in allowing societal actors to influence in this rising trend for individual criminal accountability. We do this by focusing on participation rights granted to victims, such as private prosecution in criminal cases. Based on an exploration of an original database on human rights prosecutions in Latin America and fieldwork research in three countries, we argue that private prosecution is the key causal mechanism that allows societal actors to fight in domestic courts for individual criminal accountability for human rights violations.

Because voters rely on judicial performance evaluations when casting their ballots, policymakers should work diligently to compile valid, reliable, and unbiased information about our sitting judges. Although some claim that judicial performance evaluations are fair, the systematic research needed to establish such a proposition has not been done. By the use of attorney judicial performance survey data from Clark County, Nevada, this analysis shows that objective measures of judicial performance cannot explain away differences in scores based on race and sex. Minority judges and female judges score consistently and significantly lower than do their white and male counterparts, all other things being equal. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that judicial performance evaluation surveys may carry with them unexamined and unconscious gender/race biases. Future research must compare judicial performance evaluation structure, content, and execution across states in order to identify those evaluation mechanisms least susceptible to unconscious gender and race bias.

Political scientists have in recent years been focusing more of their attention on compliance with Supreme Court decisions. Of course, with rare exceptions, the Supreme Court does not issue orders directly; rather it announces broad policies in the form of opinions. Detailed interpretation and application of these policies are, insofar as the judicial system is concerned at least, left to other courts. Thus those interested in the nature of compliance with Supreme Court policies must explore the manner in which lower courts handle the high court decisions.

In 1969 Nathan Hakman published a report of his investigation of the role of interest groups in Supreme Court litigation. He found that interest groups filed amicus curiae briefs in only 18.6 percent of the 1,175 “noncommercial” cases decided by the Supreme Court between 1928 and 1966. Participation as amicus curiae illustrates only one aspect of litigation activity, and at that one of the most limited, but Hakman took this as a reliable indicator that interest group activity in the courts was less frequent than was commonly supposed. Based on these findings, Hakman attacked the view that amicus participation was a form of political action. Such a view, he argued, was mere “scholarly folklore” (Hakman, 1969: 199).

In a recent article in these pages Professor W.L.F. Felstiner (1974) made a substantial contribution to the literature on dispute processing by analyzing the role of avoidance as a means of ending disputes, and by correlating the ubiquity of this technique with differing forms of societal organization. In brief, his insight—richly developed in the article—is that the tendency to walk away from contentious situations is greater in “technologically complex, rich societies” than in “technologically simple, poor societies.” This is because the organization of richer societies minimizes the importance and the intertwining (multiplexity) of family and other group ties and maximizes social, occupational and geographic mobility. In contrast, citizens of poorer societies are bound closely to the individuals in their communities and thus have a greater need and capacity for resolving—rather than walking away from—disputes with those individuals.

Whilst sexual violence has been an offence associated both with war- and peacetime throughout history, its rise to the tables where international peace and security are negotiated, represents a significant shift. This article continues the scholarly conversation about conflict-related sexual violence and its emergence as a “hot topic” on academic, political, and activist agendas. Specifically, we ask how and why criminal law constitutes the ultimately meaningful response to such violence. Building on frame analysis, we address how the fight against conflict-related sexual violence has become the fight against impunity. We examine what imageries of victims and perpetrators, causes and consequences key actors within interstate diplomacy and human rights advocacy evoke to drive this development. We argue that these narratives shape the political discourse on conflict-related sexual violence, which may in turn influence the perceived political maneuverability in the face of such harms.

In this paper disputes are seen as varying along a dimension of admitted liability, that is, the extent to which defendants admit some obligation to plaintiffs; they may admit no liability, partial liability, or full liability. This conceptualization was used in an empirical study of a small claims court. The results paint a portrait of the court that is at variance with most of the previous literature. Consumer issues constitute a substantial portion of the court caseload. On average, defendants, including individual consumers, do well when they dispute claims. Among disputed cases, small rather than large businesses predominate. Prior literature has suggested that, in comparison to adjudication, mediation of claims produces compromise outcomes and higher rates of compliance. This research shows that mediation yields a large percentage of all-or-none results, but to the extent that there is compromise and compliance, it can be partly ascribed to admitted liability characteristics. Some data on defaulted cases are also presented.

While pleading guilty has become ubiquitous in criminal trial courts, limited research has focused on the plea process and the factors that influence guilty plea convictions. Numerous theoretical accounts of the plea process highlight the importance of the court actors and their interactions. Based on this research, the current study analyzes the impact of courtroom actor familiarity and similarity on the chosen mode of disposition and the time to disposition. The findings demonstrate that similarity among the actors and familiarity between the prosecutor and judge increase the odds of a plea disposition and reduce the days to disposition. However, familiarity of the defense attorney seems to impede on the informal plea process, such that cases are more likely to proceed to trial when the defense attorney is more familiar with the other actors.

Large law firms are increasingly moving away from the “up or out” organizational model by employing lawyers on a permanent basis under a variety of titles, a trend with important consequences for the structure of lawyers' career opportunities. Some firms, however, have moved farther in this direction than others. Using data from a nationwide sample of law firm establishments, this study investigates factors that lead firms to implement permanent employment arrangements. The results show that firms that are more exposed to new features of the changing legal environment make greater use of permanent employees. Permanent employment arrangements are more common in law firms where work is more complex, ties to clients are weaker, and lawyers place less emphasis on collegiality. Effects are stronger for lawyers with nontraditional titles such as “senior attorney” and “senior counsel” than for permanent associates, suggesting that firms employ two distinct categories of permanent non-partner lawyers.

This article investigates how the consciousness of ordinary citizens enlisted as jurors in death penalty trials is racialized. The study draws on post-trial interviews with some 66 white and black jurors who served on 24 capital trials in which either a white or black defendant received the death sentence. Findings among white jurors reveal a hegemonic tale of racial inferiority. However, other characteristics such as social class or relevant biographical experiences help explain how jurors' stories are racialized. More specifically, racial inferiority is articulated in four congruous narratives: “individual responsibility,” “the tragedy of the ‘black’ group,” “the bad kid and the caring family,” and “the threatening outsider.” Furthermore, black jurors' stories are influenced by their background experiences as well. More-educated black jurors employ a sympathetic discourse toward the “culturally distant whites.” On the other hand, working-class blacks that have had negative experiences with whites in public are found to employ a narrative of “resisting white racism.” Understanding the subtle influences of legal agents' multiple identities in the remaking of racial hegemony has broader implications for a revised constitutive perspective of law—what I call a “theory of legal narrativity.”

This paper, using mostly data drawn from a study of the criminal work of the Superior Court of Alameda County, California, from 1880 on, explores the history of plea bargaining. Plea bargaining, it turns out, was used in Alameda County from at least 1880, though it was by no means as common in the late 19th century as it is today. There is also ample evidence of “implicit plea bargaining,” that is, pleading guilty in expectation of a lighter sentence. The data from this study suggest that plea bargaining cannot be explained simply as a reaction to crowded court conditions. It is connected with structural and social changes in criminal justice, in particular, the rise of professional police and prosecutors.