Conducting Law and Society Research: Reflections on Methods and Practices

by Simon Halliday , Patrick Schmidt

• ISBN13: 9780521895910
• ISBN10: 052189591X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-05-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Through interviews with many of the most noteworthy authors in Law and Society, Conducting Law and Society Research takes students and scholars behind the scenes of empirical scholarship, showing the messy reality of research methods. The challenges and the uncertainties, so often missing from research methods textbooks, are revealed in candid detail. These accessible and revealing conversations about the lived reality of classic projects will be a source of encouragement and inspiration to those embarking on empirical research, ranging across the full array of disciplines that contribute to Law and Society. For all of the ambiguities and challenges to the social "scientific" study of law, the reflections found in this book - collectively capturing a portrait of the field through the window of the research efforts - individually remind readers that "good research" displays not an absence of problems, but the care taken in negotiating them.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction: Beyond Methods - Law and Society in Action	p. 1
Stewart Macaulay and "Non-Contractual Relations in Business"	p. 14
Robert Kagan and Regulatory Justice	p. 26
Malcolm Feeley and The Process Is the Punishment	p. 39
Lawrence Friedman and The Roots of Justice	p. 50
John Heinz and Edward Laumann and Chicago Lawyers	p. 59
Alan Paterson and The Law Lords	p. 72
David Engel and "The Oven Bird's Song"	p. 83
Keith Hawkins and Environment and Enforcement	p. 94
Carol Greenhouse and Praying for Justice	p. 105
John Conley and William O'Barr and Rules versus Relationships	p. 117
Sally Engle Merry and Getting Justice and Getting Even	p. 129
Tom Tyler and Why People Obey the Law	p. 141
Doreen McBarnet and "Whiter than White Collar Crime"	p. 152
Gerald Rosenberg and The Hollow Hope	p. 163
Michael McCann and Rights at Work	p. 174
Austin Sarat and William Felstiner and Divorce Lawyers and Their Clients	p. 187
Yves Dezalay and Bryant Garth and Dealing in Virtue	p. 200
Patricia Ewick and Susan Silbey and The Common Place of Law	p. 214
Hazel Genn and Paths to Justice	p. 227
John Braithwaite and Peter Drahos and Global Business Regulation	p. 240
John Hagan and Justice in the Balkans	p. 252
Conclusion: "Research Is a Messy Business"- An Archeology of the Craft of Sociolegal Research	p. 264
Index	p. 286
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