As I begin this second volume as editor of the Review, I want to note with appreciation the crucial role played by reviewers of manuscripts for the Law & Society Review. I have been delighted to find that reviewers generally provide detailed and instructive evaluations of content and analysis. Even when a reviewer finds a manuscript unsuitable for publication, the evaluation almost always provides useful advice on how the author can approach the research question in future work. (There are exceptions: a reviewer whose only response was “too simplistic”) As a result of the expertise and impressive investment of time contributed by these anonymous reviewers, nearly every submission published in the Review is improved by the review process.

This article focuses on the emergence of sociolegal studies over the past twenty-five years through an analysis of the development of the Law and Society Association. The paper takes the view that this scholarly field is best understood from a broad-based, multidisciplinary perspective that includes, but does not privilege, legal scholarship. Also, the article argues that sociolegal studies has been pluralistic, self-reflective, and dynamic since its inception and that current critiques must be examined in light of this past. Three areas of contemporary concern—the centrality of law; the impact of policy, politics, and reform motives; and the nature of science—are assessed in terms of sociolegal studies specifically and social science inquiry more generally. Opportunities for growth and change are considered.

In an increasingly competitive world marketplace, can cross-national variations in law—in this case, in labor law—produce markedly different economic outcomes? In both The Netherlands and the United States, law has helped rationalize the hiring of port labor and provide dockworkers greater security. However, American longshoremen have captured a larger share of the productivity gains flowing from the mechanization of cargo handling than have Dutch dockworkers. Because of constraints imposed by American longshore unions, container terminals in Rotterdam are more efficient and less costly to users. These differences can in part be explained by American labor law, which encourages a more adversarial, self-seeking union posture than does the labor law structure in The Netherlands. Probably more important, however, are economic factors, which expose Dutch dockworkers (but not West Coast longshoremen) to competition from ports in other nations. Similarly, international competition, intensified by the technological revolution in transportation, seems likely to impel cross-national convergence in many spheres, leveling differences in law and in legally influenced outcomes.

Despite the advances made in the study of appellate courts in the past several decades, little attention has been devoted to evaluating the role of appellate courts cross-nationally. This article examines appellate courts in England and in America, particularly the English Court of Appeal and the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals. The American and English systems are proposed as alternative models of the relationship between courts and their respective political systems in Western common law regimes. Focusing on the intervention behavior of the intermediate appellate courts and their interaction with their respective courts of last resort, the data presented reveal more commonality than divergence in the behavior of the two judicial hierarchies.

This article applies the dispute processing model developed by Felstiner, Abel, and Sarat (1980–81) to disputing between patients and doctors. We conducted interviews with 240 dissatisfied patients to examine the dispute resolution choices they made in response to unsatisfactory medical experiences. Probit models were constructed for each of five resolution choices, incorporating independent variables derived form the Felstiner et al. conceptual model. These analyses go beyond previous studies of medical malpractice by (a) presenting a comparative analysis of suers and nonsuers, (b) not relying on closed malpractice case data, and (c) presenting the perspective of aggrieved patients.

This article develops an agenda setting framework for studying the role of American courts in protecting and promoting the interests of the politically disadvantaged. Drawing from work on agenda setting processes in local political systems, the author presents a framework that examines the ways in which varying configurations of organizational power influence the types of issues that reach lower court agendas. The framework and its implications are illustrated with findings from empirical research on legal mobilization on behalf of the poor by federally funded legal services lawyers. The article shows the variety of mechanisms employed by powerful local interests to constrain poverty lawyers who wish to mobilize issues of social reform. The findings suggest that judicial agendas may reflect prevailing distributions of power to a much greater extent than is implied by conventional views of the legal system's utility in effecting social reform.

Social science research on civil litigation has concentrated either on explaining variations in aggregate litigation levels or on explaining individual-level mobilization of the law. This article attempts to connect the two approaches by analyzing variations in state-level employment civil rights litigation within a framework based on individual-legal decisionmaking. Because the structure of our court system forces individuals to consider the costs and benefits of pursuing litigation, the model developed here incorporates factors that would affect individuals' cost/benefit decisionmaking with regard to civil rights litigation. The multivariate regression model based on this framework explains, with increasing strength, much of the state-level variation in civil rights litigation levels for the years 1970, 1975, and 1980. Although the framework has certain limitations, it may serve to enhance our understanding of aggregate litigation levels.