This paper provides an ethnographic analysis of the ways that employees of an emergency shelter create and maintain order. The paper applies the framework of legal consciousness to explicate the practices of the employees that amount to “private ordering.” The employees administer the rules of the shelter in the context of an “ethic of care,” but one that is outside the purview of formal law. This ethic, however, is polysemic, and the employees, therefore, must adopt diverse styles based on their understandings of their professional roles regarding the needs of the clients. The practices of two employees are highlighted in detail, whose strategies in applying and maintaining adherence to shelter rules are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Both make decisions in a somewhat spontaneous and, more importantly, inconsistent, fashion. Despite the complications that arise from applying the rules as such, the employees tolerate, even laud and celebrate, these methods. While this system of private ordering has little resemblance to the ordered, consistent, and rigid application of formal law, it allows the employees to administer diverse strategies of ethics of care and shape practices to fit their professional roles and the complex exigencies of an emergency shelter. The paper locates the extant private ordering not in the law, nor in its shadow—assumed to be preconditions—but outside or beyond them. Given that this ordering is founded against the law—it is not law, nor law-like and has no desire to so be—the paper suggests that it can be thought of as private ordering proper and lays the framework for theorization that accounts for its instrumental and symbolic dimensions.

Since group violence is but one of several means of conducting conflict, explanation for its occurrence must be embedded in a comprehensive theory of conflict. Yet violent conflict is so topical and important that an effort to reflect on it sociologically is well worth undertaking at this time even in the absence of a comprehensive theory of social conflict. Indeed, Max Weber (1947: 133) has written that “the treatment of conflict involving the use of physical violence as a separate type is justified by the special characteristics of the employment of this means and the corresponding peculiarities of the sociological consequences of its use.” In this essay, I shall avoid definitional and typological exercises, and concentrate rather on specific, testable hypotheses and empirical uniformities of group violence that have been put forward and commented upon at various times. I shall also present some data and findings bearing on the hypotheses that, while not “testing” them in rigorous fashion, will do more than simply provide plausible illustrations that can always be found whenever a large body of historical and contemporary cases is carefully searched. The final aim of the paper is to link up these hypotheses and uniformities in more systematic fashion than is presently available although the paper does not spell out a systematic theory of group violence. At this stage of theory when a plausible case can be made for a large number of hypotheses, it is important to spell out the specific conditions under which specific hypotheses are thought to be applicable.

“Students of law and society have grown increasingly aware of the contribution to the character of the legal system made by the attorney in his professional role.” In his capacity as “gate keeper to the courts” the private attorney is a significant actor in the judicial process, especially at the community level (Jacob and Vines, 1963: 251). His decisions, formulated within limits set by the norms, rules, and expectations of the profession (i.e., bar associations) initially determine who has a right to lodge a grievance, at what cost, under what conditions, and to what ends.

The Legal Services Program of the Office of Economic Opportunity provides a unique opportunity to explore the professional values and attitudes of lawyers, because the Program challenges the traditional prerogatives of bar associations in controlling access to the legal resources. The three aspects of the Program representing the most serious challenge to the traditional practice of law are: (1) OEO's insistence that local programs utilize the legal process as an instrument of social and political reform on behalf of the poor; (2) the conscious, though wavering, effort to structure programs so as to insure their independence from local bar domination; and (3) the concept and practice of “maximum feasible participation” of the poor in the actual management of local programs. The response of private practitioners to the OEO challenge provides some insights into such matters as the profession's criteria for gatekeeping and the lawyers' instruments of control.

When the Supreme Court takes action, it establishes national policy within an issue area. A traditional, legal view holds that the decisions of the Court settle questions of law and thereby close the door on future litigation, reducing the need for future attention to that issue. Alternatively, an emerging interest group perspective suggests the Court, in deciding cases, provides signals that encourage additional attention to particular issues. I examine these competing perspectives of what happens in the federal courts after Supreme Court decisions. My results indicate that while Supreme Court decisions generally settle areas of law in terms of overall litigation rates, they also introduce new information that leads to increases in the attention of judges and interest groups to those particular issues.

The transformation of law in the Yukon attendant upon the arrival of the North West Mounted Police and their successful attempt to eliminate the authority of the miners' meeting in the district is reviewed. In this instance, it appears that the symbolic as distinct from the instrumental functions of law led to the acceptance of a fundamental change in the character of local legal institutions.

Are Supreme Court justices with prior experience in the executive branch more likely to defer to the president in separation of powers cases? While previous research has suggested that such background may signal judicial policy preferences but does not shape them, I argue here that institutional socialization may indeed increase future judicial deference to the president. Using an original data set of executive power cases decided between 1942 and 2007, I model justice-votes to test this hypothesis. I uncover three noteworthy findings: (1) a clear correlation between prior executive branch experience and support for the executive branch, (2) the degree of this support intensifies as executive branch tenure increases, a finding congruent with a socialization hypothesis, and (3) contrary to received wisdom, executive powers cases possess a clear ideological dimension, in line with the expectations of the attitudinal model.

United States courts of appeals were created over four decades ago to help the Supreme Court enforce the supremacy' and uniformity of federal law. Until recently, however, their actual operations and functions in the American polity have received scant description and analysis (Carington, 1969: 542; Dolbeare, 1969: 373-404; Goldman and Jahnige, 1971; Richardson and Vines, 1970; Schick, 1970). This paper is a preliminary report of data gathered to assess the roles of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Second, and Fifth Circuits in the federal legal system.' The report will: (1) describe the business of the three tribunals, (2) compare decisional patterns among them and the Supreme Court in the same cases, and (3) explore relationships among trial courts, intermediate courts, and the Supreme Court in the flow of federal litigation.

The publication of an inter-disciplinary effort on child welfare law, co-authored by three such luminary figures as Joseph Goldstein (Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law, Science and Social Policy at Yale University Law School), Anna Freud (perhaps the foremost living authority on the emotional lives of children), and Albert Solnit (Director of the Yale University Child Study Center), is an intellectual event. The talents of these authors are such that their book, Beyond the Best Interests of the Child (1973), ought to have significance beyond its reconceptualization of the law of child custody; it ought also to be a landmark in the history of cooperation between social scientists and lawyers. Despite impressive achievements, however, the book's greatest utility may be as an example of the wrong way to employ social science to solve problems of social policy.

A striking feature of the historical American criminal justice system has been the exclusion of racial minorities from decision-making positions, such as juror. In this study of criminal justice in a New Mexico county in the late 19th century, however, Mexicans are the vast majority of petit jurors, and frequently they decide the fates of European-American defendants. A regime of racial power-sharing between Mexicans and European-Americans characterized the administration of the criminal justice system. Racial power-sharing served the ends of American colonizers in legitimizing their governance after an initial violent occupation. Perhaps more surprisingly, it also served the ends of both elites and middle status Mexicans, at least some of the time. Criminal law—and, particularly, the jury as an institution—served both the colonizers and the colonized in this context.

This paper discusses the major factors that appear to influence how clients and lawyers come together, and what role professional advertising might play in this process. The context for the discussion is the traditional model of appropriate lawyer-client relations, which is an ideal built into the code of professional conduct. The model presumes a lawyer's professional reputation, and the maintenance of professional standards by the bar. In the real world, conditions of legal practice and problem defining by consumers cause departure from the ideal. A number of factors influence how clients come to perceive problems as amenable to legal assistance. These are certain psychological, cultural, and social attributes whose operation in law is less well understood than it is in medicine. In addition, there are certain structural factors that influence the link between prospective clients and lawyers. Prominent among these is the fact that legal services comprise an imperfect market due to uncertainty of case outcome and difficulties of information procurement. It is suggested that consumers are reasonably rational in their search for lawyers given these problems. Consumers rely heavily upon informal contact networks and influential intermediaries, a process not unlike searching for a job or a doctor. The implications of these findings for opening up information channels through relaxation of the ban on advertising are discussed.

Studies of Court–Congress relations assume that Congress overrides Court decisions based on legislative preferences, but no empirical evidence supports this claim. Our first goal is to show that Congress is more likely to pass override legislation the further ideologically removed a decision is from pivotal legislative actors. Second, we seek to determine whether Congress rationally anticipates Court rejection of override legislation, avoiding legislation when the current Court is likely to strike it down. Third, most studies argue that Congress only overrides statutory decisions. We contend that Congress has an incentive to override all Court decisions with which it disagrees, regardless of their legal basis. Using data on congressional overrides of Supreme Court decisions between 1946 and 1990, we show that Congress overrides Court decisions with which it ideologically disagrees, is not less likely to override when it anticipates that the Court will reject override legislation, and acts on preferences regardless of the legal basis of a decision. We therefore empirically substantiate a core part of separation-of-powers models of Court–Congress relations, as well as speak to the relative power of Congress and the Court on the ultimate content of policy.

Recent law and economics scholarship has revived a debate on bright-line rules in property theory. Economic analysis asserts a baseline preference for bright-line property rules because of the information costs if “all the world” had to understand a range of permitted uses, or deal with multiple interest holders in a resource. A baseline preference for bright-line rules of property arises from the cost of communicating information: all else being equal, complex rules suit smaller audiences (e.g., contracting parties) and simple rules suit large audiences (e.g., property transactors, violators, and enforcers). This article explores the circumstances in which a simple rule, purportedly for a large audience, takes on interpretive complexity as it traverses specialized audience segments. The argument draws on two heuristic strands of recent sociolegal scholarship: systems theory notions of autopoiesis, and concepts of negotiability in plural property relations. The potential for complex interpretations of simple legal rules is illustrated through a case study of the Fataluku language group in the district of Lautem, East Timor.

This article discusses how McCann's theory on legal mobilization and social change is generalizable to the legal decisions of agencies. I demonstrate how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) routinely delayed and denied Title VII employment rights on the basis of sex and how this resulted in the formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW) to ensure that the sex provision of Title VII was enforced. The article also discusses the influence of NOW in shaping the first years of Title VII law and the organization's role in reversing EEOC decisions denying rights under the sex provision of the law.

This essay focuses on factors internal to the organization of social life in two regions of Indonesia to explain differences in patterns of dispute management that occur despite similarities in forums, substantive property categories, and types of disputes—primarily over inheritance and property rights in land. In Minangkabau, where disputes are usually phrased in terms of inherited property, are concerned with the status of land, and are more likely to expand into major political battles, rice land is intensively farmed and is held by matrilineal clans that are also political units. In Ambon, disputes are usually phrased in terms of self-acquired property, are concerned with the status of trees, and are less political; people combine fishing and gathering with harvesting sago palms, distinguish rights to land from rights to trees, lack stable descent groups, and share the land with recent migrants. Although increasing monetization in Minangkabau is making property relationships more complex, while increasing sedentarization in Ambon is simplifying property relationships, both regions are moving toward a concept of property rights akin to the Western concept of ownership.

This paper explores the determinants of the costs of prisons. An economic model relates cost to output, input prices, and a number of variables controlling for differences in the type of outputs and inputs for each prison. Data from the federal prison system are used to estimate the model. Our results indicate that a minimum-cost prison would be quite large (1,000 to 1,600 inmates) and that the improvement of some correctional standards (e.g., single-bed cells, more living space) may serve to decrease rather than increase prison operating costs.

Diversifying police forces has been suggested to improve “police-minority relations” amidst national uprisings against police violence. Yet, little research investigates how police and black civilians—two groups invoked in discourse on “police-minority relations”—understand the function of diversity interventions. We draw on 100 in-depth interviews with 60 black women civilians and 40 police from various racial and ethnic backgrounds to explore how they understand the function of racial diversity in policing. Findings highlight discrepancies in how these two groups frame the utility of racial diversity in policing, revealing conflicting epistemologies of race and racism. Police draw on an epistemology of racial ignorance (Mills 1997, 2007, 2015) to selectively accommodate race-conscious critique while denying the history and power dynamics between the institution and minority communities. Conversely, black women civilians, grounded in a standpoint epistemology (Collins, 1986, 2009), emphasize the historical roots of policing, along with collective memories, and lived experiences to understand the relationship between the institution and minority communities. Through a comparative analysis of these frames, we theorize dominant/state-sponsored discourse on diversity and police-minority relations as form of racecraft (Fields & Fields 2012, 2014) that serves to legitimize negligible institutional change to policing in an era of renewed scrutiny of police racism.

In 2010, like many African countries since the 1990s, Kenya passed a new constitution. This constitution aimed to get rid of many past issues including the definition of citizenship. Globally, two general principles govern the acquisition of citizenship, descent from a citizen (jus sanguinis), and the fact of birth within a state territory (jus soli). In contrast to the prior Constitution that required both descent from Kenyan parents and birth in Kenya, the 2010 Constitution adopted a rule of citizenship by descent alone (jus sanguinis) from either parent. However, today Kenya is faced with a conundrum first articulated by Aristotle: how do you understand and operationalize citizenship by descent in a new state, or in the case of Kenya, one that has only just turned fifty? The crux of this conundrum is determining the basis of the citizenship of parents who precede the polity and therefore what they can transfer to their children. Understanding that articulations of citizenship are also systems of exclusion, this paper asks who can and cannot be a Kenyan citizen and why? What are the unintended consequences of efforts to escape Aristotle's conundrum?