Law In A Changing Society

The author argues throughout this text that law must adapt itself to social change if it is to remain the strength of creating social order in society. Sections include discussions on: Theory of Legal Change, Social Change & Legal Institutions, Society & the Individual, Public Law, & Law Between Nations.

To most Americans, the law-especially noncriminal law-is a mystery that only someone with a law degree can solve. Understanding Law in a Changing Society renders the complexity of law at a level that everyone can understand. The book walks readers through the structure of the legal system, different divisions of civil law, and the core concepts and distinctions that underlie contemporary legal thought. It also provides insight into the way law and social change affect one another. With this revised and updated third edition, the authors have incorporated an updated preface and a new introduction; outlined a "How to Brief a Case" section; included new case studies, readings, and "You be the Judge" features for selected chapters; and for the first time added a glossary of legal terms and key websites to the book. Important developments in judicial selection, the state secrets doctrine, and family law (including same sex marriage, child custody, and unwed fathers' rights) are highlighted.

A core text for the Law and Society or Sociology of Law course offered in Sociology, Criminal Justice, Political Science, and Schools of Law. * John Sutton offers an explicitly analytical perspective to the subject - how does law change? What makes law more or less effective in solving social problems? What do lawyers do? * Chapter 1 contrasts normative and sociological perspectives on law, and presents a brief primer on the logic of research and inference as it is applied to law related issues. * Theories of legal change are discussed within a common conceptual framework that highlights the explantory strengths and weaknesses of different arguments. * Discussions of "law in action" are explicitly comparative, applying a consistent model to explain the variable outcomes of civil rights legislation. * Many concrete, in-depth examples throughout the chapters.

Research and real-life examples that “lucidly connect some of the divisive social issues confronting us today to that thing we call ‘the law’” (Law and Politics Book Review). Law and society is a rapidly growing field that turns the conventional view of law as mythical abstraction on its head. Kitty Calavita brilliantly brings to life the ways in which law is found not only in statutes and courtrooms but in our institutions and interactions, while inviting readers into conversations that introduce the field’s dominant themes and most lively disagreements. Deftly interweaving scholarship with familiar examples, Calavita shows how scholars in the discipline are collectively engaged in a subversive exposé of law’s public mythology. While surveying prominent issues and distinctive approaches to both law as it is written and actual legal practices, as well as the law’s potential as a tool for social change, this volume provides a view of law that is more real but just as compelling as its mythic counterpart. With this second edition of Invitation to Law and Society, Calavita brings up to date what is arguably the leading introduction to this exciting, evolving field of inquiry and adds a new chapter on the growing law and cultural studies movement. “Entertaining and conversational.” —Law and Social Inquiry

In this first U.S. edition of a classic work of comparative legal scholarship, Alan Watson argues that law fails to keep step with social change, even when that change is massive. To illustrate the ways in which law is dysfunctional, he draws on the two most innovative western systems, of Rome and England, to show that harmful rules continue for centuries. To make his case, he uses examples where, in the main, "the law benefits no recognizable group or class within the society (except possibly lawyers who benefit from confusion) and is generally inconvenient or positively harmful to society as a whole or to large or powerful groups within the society." Widely respected for his "fearless challenge of the accepted or dominant view and his own encyclopedic knowledge of Roman law" (The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing), Watson considers the development of law in global terms and across the centuries. His arguments centering on how societies borrow from other legal systems and the continuity of legal systems are particularly instructive for those interested in legal development and the development of a common law for the European Union. postamble();