AMICI

Newsletter of the Sociology of Law Section
American Sociological Association

Volume 6, Number 1   (Fall, 1998)

FROM THE CHAIR
by Susan Silbey

	The political events of this last year have provided Americans,
indeed all the interested world, with abundant images of the American
legal system. And, this last year has not been unusual, the presidential
scandals and calls for impeachment following upon several overly long and
thoroughly broadcasted criminal trials.  But even in the absence of
spectacular and unusual trials, American life is routinely saturated with
law: labels on clothing and food, the books we read, TV shows we watch,
and the jokes we tell are often about matters legal.  Americans'
relationship with law, like many romances, is filled with paradox and
contradiction: passionate embrace and emotional revulsion.  In, The Common
Place of Law: Stories From Everyday Life my coauthor Patty Ewick and I
argue that this ambivalent romance with law sustains, rather than
undermines, the power and durability of our legal institutions. 

        Although the most recent legal spectacles have not been ones about
which many Americans can take pride, if treated as data we can use them to
illustrate how our legal system works.  For example, just before and
following the November election, the media exchanges included the
contradictory opinions of notable historians and legal scholars concerning
the constitutional grounds for impeachment. One camp argued that
"providing false and misleading testimony under oath in a civil deposition
and before the grand jury," "withholding evidence and causing evidence to
be withheld and concealed," and "tampering with prospective witnesses in a
civil lawsuit and before a federal grand jury" are properly understood as
high crimes and misdemeanors because some of the framers meant that phrase
to include ordinary crimes that might be commited by private as well as
public people. Another camp of commentators declared that only misbehavior
incident to the conduct of official duties is impeachable; yet another
group emphasized the entrapment and misuse of office by the special
prosecutor, the essentially private nature of the conduct that
precipitated all of this investigation, and the fact that most of the
misconduct would have been immaterial in conventional litigation.  Yet
others claimed that the obligation to truthful testimony persists despite
the misuse of prosecutorial discretion, despite the practical
unavailability of protections against self-incrimination in this case, and
despite what more conventional practices of prosecutorial and judicial
discretion might have produced. And so it goes. 

        How is a sociologist of law to make sense of all of this?  To
engage in the interpretive debate is to take up the mantle of the
historians and the lawyers, attractive robes for some no doubt but not the
clothes we wear. Suffice to notice that law is always a matter of
interpretation. More important is to make the sociological points,
however, by mapping the roles and functions of interpretation and debate
within legal processes.  Difference and debate are what the law is all
about since whatever else law does it always provides an arena for
resolving disputes about all sorts of important, sublime, and yes also
petty matters.  The law provides us with this alternative to other means
of dispute handling, e.g. combat, coercion by economic or other material
means, as well as prayer.  For the sociologist of law, it is not a matter
of who is right in this or any particular instance.  Rather, for the
sociologist, it is the form and organization of the debate that
illustrates and enacts legality as a structure of social action.  The
opposite, contradictory, and sometimes baffling positions legal scholars
express, with respect not only to the recent impeach ment efforts but to
the law in general, enact and illustrate the profound ambivalence of
Americans' romance with the law.  That ambivalence sustains the
institutions and practices of legality. (Legality is here understood not
as what is prescribed by law but refers to the institutions and practices
and consciousness associated with law.)

        Consider another example.  Each year, on the first Monday in
October, as the Supreme Court opens session, we observe the apotheosis of
this complicated affair.  Entombed in marble courtrooms and symbolized by
blindfolded Justice, the law claims a transcendent, sacred status.  Before
this court, Americans bring all manner of disputes; the first week this
session included cases of carjacking, antitust, patent infringement, and
invasion of privacy.  In our deference to the Court's judgments, we
experience a kind of chivalrous love: remote, solemn, and unsullied. 

        More commonly, and more recently, people experience a motley,
profane law: in the mundane disputes played out in lower courts, at the
end of queues at the registry of motor vehicles, in the rear view mirror
seeing a police cruiser approach. We exchange lawyer jokes with amusement
and a smug sense of being in the know.  We express disgust over the
implausibility of law suits and the impenetrability of legal language. We
acknowledge that too often the "haves come out ahead," and that law is
just a game of skill and money.  This is the ribald side of the engagement
with law. 

        It appears that Americans reserve their greatest hopes and express
their sharpest criticisms for the law.  They fear the law and, at the same
time, seek its protection. They hold up the ideal of the rule of law as a
model for the entire world, and are simultaneously cynical about the
capacity of law to provide justice.  They revere the law but are often
revolted by it. 

        Recognizing this ambivalence to law and its agents helps to
explain Americans' diverse reactions to the legal spectacle we have been
witnessing for the past year: the independent counsel stalking a
democratically elected president about all manner of things, but most
effectively about illicit, extramarital sex. We talk seamlessly of the
Constitution and cigars; grand jury testimony and silly love notes; 
perjury and bragging about sexual conquests, the founder's intentions and
the spin of electoral campaigns.  We are riveted and repulsed by it all. 
And those who worry about such things worry about the effect all of this
will have on the legitimacy of the law and the Presidency. 

        The pundits are confounded, though, by the fact that the legal
circus seems to have a limited effect on Americans' allegiance and
support. It would appear that our romance with law is more resilient than
we might have imagined. The contradictory embrace of law by Americans is
not a weakness or flaw in the public culture.  Nor is it a mark of
confusion or naivete.  It is the source of law's durability and power. 
Because Americans express contradictory conceptions of law, they are able
to accept as authoritative both the opening of the Supreme Court and the
independent counsel's circus. 

         If the cynical manipulation of rules were all of the law, it
might, as some fear, undermine legal authority.  But the cynicism is
counterbalanced by a good measure of idealism and widespread belief in the
possibility of objective and fair judgment.  Indeed, the disappointment
expressed in lawyer's jokes, or criticisms that "the law is just a
gimmick," reveal the public's aspiration that law be something better than
a trick. 

        More importantly, perhaps, if the law were understood and
celebrated solely in terms of its idealized symbols, if all courts were
believed to be like the Supreme Court, the authority of law would be
fragile.  Our cynicism leavens our idealism, making it less brittle. 
There is abundant daily evidence that law is not fair nor impartial, that
OJ Simpson can get a better defense than Jane Q. Citizen, that some judges
do not pay close attention to the arguments nor read all the documents,
that paradoxically the President has been treated less well than an
ordinary criminal defendant, and that some lawyers are not skilled and
sometimes fail to show up at all.  If allegiance were premised on the
idealized conceptions, any of these lapses might easily undermine support
for law. 

        The sociology of law allows us to move beyond the terms of the 
debate itself to locate what appears to be a legal cunundrum wtihin the 
structure of the institution of legality itself, and within American 
culture writ large. The stories we tell about law are also stories we 
tell about other institutions, and in language and through concepts 
central to social theory (but that is a matter for another day).  Because 
Americans understand the law to be both a game played by unruly lawyers 
and a solemn process that transcends the actions of individuals, they are 
willing to commit to the long run of the rule of law, or to legality as a 
structure of social action.  Americans can both celebrate the opening of 
the Supreme Court and be revolted by the legal games played by the 
Independent Counsel, Congress and the President without sacrificing their 
fidelity to law because they understand the law to be both sacred and 
profane.

_______________________________________________________________


Nominations for officers:

The ASA SOCIOLOGY OF LAW SECTION invites nominations for members of the
Section Council, and Chair. The current Council members (dates of term
expiring) are Kitty Calavita (99), John Hagan (99), Bob Kidder (99),
Joachim Savelsberg (00), Mark Suchman (00), John Sutton (00). Kitty
Calavita is also Secretary/Treasurer (00),Frank Munger is Past Chair (99),
Robin Stryker is Chair-elect (00), and Susan Silbey is Chair (99).  Please
submit your nominations of others, or yourself, for candidacy for a
position on the council or as chair to the Chair of the Nominations
Committee, John Hagan, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, Toronto
Canada, (hagan@chass.utoronto.ca). 

Committee Members:
        John Hagan, Chair
        Mark Suchman (U of Wisconsin)
        Rick Lempert (U of Michigan)
        Penelope Canaan (U of Denver)
        Kevin Delaney (Temple U)

__________________________________________________________


                       Article Prize Nominations
                                sought

THE ASA SOCIOLOGY OF LAW SECTION invites nominations for its annual
Outstanding Article in the Sociology of Law Award.  The award committee
solicits one or more entries by members of the American Sociological
Association.  Nominations may be offered for articles published in
sociological and socio-legal journals or in law reviews, published in
1997 and 1998.  Deadline for submitting nominations is March 31, 1999. 
Please send a letter, providing name of author, title of article, all
relevant publication details, and a short statement explaining the merit
of the article to: 

 Carol A. Heimer
 Professor of Sociology
 Northwestern University
 1810 Chicago Ave.
 Evanston, IL 60208
 phone: 847-491-7480
 fax: 847-491-9907
 c-heimer@nwu.edu

Committee Members:

        Carol Heimer, Chair
        Elizabeth Boyle (Stanford U)
        Cal Morrill (U Of Arizona)
        Patricia Grawtney Gibbs (U of Oregon)

__________________________________________________________



                        Law and Social Inquiry
                        Graduate Student Paper
                              Competition

The editors of Law and Social Inquiry are pleased to announce a
competition for the best journal-length paper in the field of sociolegal
studies written by a graduate student. The winning paper will be published
in Law and Social Inquiry and the author will receive a cash prize of
$500.  Submissions will be judged by the editorial board, and the winning
submission will be internally reviewed for publication. The author must be
a graduate student or law student at the time of submission. Entries
should be received by March 1, 1999. The winner will be selected by May 1
and the prize will be awarded at the annual meeting of the Law and Society
Association. 

Law and Social Inquiry publishes both
empirical and theoretical studies of
sociolegal processes from a variety of
disciplinary perspectives.

Please send your best work to: The
Editors, Law and Social
Inquiry,American Bar Foundation, 750
N. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL
60611. For further information send
e-mail to lsi abf@abfn.org,or call (312)
988-6517.

Carol A. Heimer
Professor of Sociology
Northwestern University
1810 Chicago Ave.
Evanston, IL 60208
phone: 847-491-7480
fax: 847-491-9907

or

American Bar Foundation
750 N. Lake Shore Dr.
Chicago, IL 60611
phone: 312-988-6556
fax: 312-988-6579



____________________________________________________________
                                   
                                RECENT
                             PUBLICATIONS

                      Prepared by Matt Silberman

ARTICLES

Elizabeth Chambliss (1997). "Organizational Determinants of Law Firm
Integration" American University Law Review 46: 669. 

Elizabeth Chambliss (1996). "Title VII as a Displacement of Conflict,"
Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review 6: 1. 

Mathieu Deflem (1998). "The Democratic Deficit Revisited: Considering the
Politics of Criminal Justice." In Politique, police et justice au bord du
futur, Y. Cartuyvels et al., eds. (Paris: Harmattan). 

Lauren B. Edelman and Mia Cahill (1998). "How Law Matters in Disputing and
Dispute Processing. (Or, The Contingency of Legal Matters in Alternative
Dispute Resolution)."  In How Does Law Matter? Bryant Garth and Austin
Sarat, eds. (Northwestern University Press). 

Debra S. Emmelman (1997). "Gauging the Strength of Evidence Prior to Plea
Bargaining:  The Interpretive Procedures of Court-Appointed Defense
Attorneys".  Law and Social Inquiry Volume 22 (#4): 927-955. 

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (1998). "Great Divides: Deceptive Distinctions and
Rhetorical Strategies in the VMI and Citadel Cases," Gender Issues
(Winter/Spring): 34-46. 

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (1998). "Reaching For the Top: `The Glass Ceiling'
and Women in the Law." In Women in Law, Shimon Shetreet, ed. (London:
Kluwer Law International). 

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (1997). "Multiple Myths and Outcomes of Sex
Segregation," New York Law School Journal of Human Rights 14 (Part
One):185-210. 

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (1997). "The Multiple Realities of Sameness and
Difference: Ideology and Practice," Journal of Social Issues 53 (#2): 
259-278. 

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein (1997). "The Myths and Justifications of Sex
Segregation In Higher Education: VMI and the Citadel," Duke Journal of
Gender, Law & Policy 4 (#1): 101-118. 

Sarah N. Gatson (1997). "Labor Policy and the Social Meaning of
Parenthood."  Law and Social Inquiry 22 (#2): 277. 

David F. Greenberg (1998). "Punishment, Division of Labor, and Social
Solidarity." In The Criminology of Criminal Law, William S. Laufer and
Freda Adler, eds. Vol. 8 in Advances in Criminological Theory (Transaction
Publishers). 

Darnell Hawkins (1998). "The Nations Within: Race, Class, Region, and
American Lethal Violence," University of Colorado Law Review 69 (#4): 
905-926. 

Darnell Hawkins (1998). "African Americans and Homicide." Pp. 143-158 in
Studying and Preventing Homicide: Issues and Challenges, M. Dwayne Smith
and Margaret A. Zahn, eds.  (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage). 

Susan S. Silbey (1998). "Ideology, Power and Justice." In Bryant Garth and
Austin Sarat, eds. Justice and Power in Sociolegal Studies (Northwestern
University Press). 


BOOKS

Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Carroll Seron, Bonnie Oglensky, and Robert Saute,
THE PART-TIME PARADOX: Time Norms, Professional Life, Family and Gender
(Routledge 1998). 

The changing demographics of professional life and escalating time
pressures at work and at home have made it increasingly difficult for
women and men to manage their lives. This study of lawyers in large
private corporate firms, government offices and corporations shows how the
"part-time solution" to careers and child-care is undercut by norms that
define commitment and excellence by adherence to demanding time norms.
Part-time lawyers face stigmatization and gender stereotyping that limits
their careers and reinforces the workaholicism of their colleagues.
However, given the gendering of part-time work, growing numbers of women
have made a trade-off between flexibility and professional status. 


Patricia Ewick and Susan S. Silbey,
THE COMMON PLACE OF LAW:
Stories from Everyday Life (University of
Chicago Press, 1998).

Why do some people take a neighbor to court over a barking dog or some
other nuisance while others accept defective products or discrimination
without seeking legal recourse?  Ewick and Silbey collected accounts of
the law from more than four hundred people of diverse backgrounds in order
to explore the different ways that people use and experience it.  Their
study identifies three narratives of law common to the stories people
tell. One is based on the perception that the law is magisterial and
remote. Another views law as a game with rules that can be manipulated to
one's advantage. A third describes law as an arbitrary power that can be
actively resisted. Drawing on these extensive case studies, Ewick and
Silbey interweave individual experiences with an analysis that constructs
a coherent and compelling theory of legality. The Common Place of Law
shows an institution as it is lived: strange and familiar, imperfect and
ordinary, and at the center of life. 


Carol A. Heimer and Lisa R. Staffen,
FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN:
the Social Organization of Responsibility
in the Hospital and the Home (The 
University of Chicago Press 1998).

        For the Sake of the Children is a study of the relation between
legal, medical, and familial normative systems.  The book examines the
social organization of responsibility by asking who takes responsibility
for critically ill newborns. Drawing on medical records and interviews
with parents and medical staff, the authors take us into two neonatal
intensive care units, showing us the traumas of extreme medical measures
and the sufferings of infants. The accounts are by turns heroic and
disturbing as we see people trying to take charge of these infants' care,
thinking about long-term plans, redefining their roles as adults and
parents, and coping with sometimes awful contingencies. 

Rather than treating responsibility as an ethical issue, the authors focus
on how responsibility is socially produced and sustained. The authors
conclude that it is not sufficient simply to be responsible individuals. 
Instead, we must learn how to be responsible in an organizational world,
and organizations must learn how to support responsible individuals. 


Andree Lajoie, Roderick A. Macdonald, Richard Janda , Guy Rocher (dirs.),
THEORIES ET EMERGENCE DU DROIT: Pluralisme, Surdetermination et
Effectivite (Montreal, Les Editions Themis and Bruxelles, Bruylant 1998). 
                        
The book is the product of an international meeting held at the Universite
de Montreal in October 1997, focusing on the empirical research of the
four editors and their contributions to legal theory.  That meeting
followed three years of research by the four editors of the book, using a
variety of research strategies conducted in diverse legal, social and
economic settings. The four editors' presentations of their different
approaches are followed by papers written by fourteen discussants. Part of
the book is in English and part in French. 


Pat Lauderdale and Randall Amster,editors, 
LIVES IN THE BALANCE: Perspectives on  Global Injustice and Inequality 
(Leiden, Netherlands: Brill 1997).

The book includes chapters on Women's Suffrage and Reproduction Rights,
Political Assassination Events and Alternative Justice, The Zapatistas and
Indigenous Civilization, The Politics of Terrorism, and Indigenous North
American Jurisprudence.  These chapters include analyses of
nation-statism, rational capitalism, and concentration of power in the
postcolonial world by focusing our attention on the cracks in the armor of
the dominant western paradigm, and by illuminating the continuing
struggles for equality and power among those who remain marginalized in
the new world (dis)order. The researchers present both quantitative and
qualitative knowledge of diverse peoples' struggles against inequity and
injustice, rather than the popular but false dichotomy between homogeneous
globalization (vulgarized as "McWorld") and seccessionist
self-determination (vulgarized as Jihad). 



William S. Laufer and Freda Adler,editors, 
THE CRIMINOLOGY OF CRIMINAL LAW [Vol. 8 in Advances
in Criminological Theory] 
(Transaction Publishers 1998).

"The eighth volume in this landmark series considers the relation between
criminal law and theories of crime, criminality, and justice.  This book
contains chapters on a wide range of topics, including: the way in which
white-collar crime is defined; new perspectives on stranger violence; the
reasons why criminologists have neglected the study of genocide; the idea
of boundary crossings in the control of deviance; the relation between
punishment and solidarity; the connection between the notion of justice
and modern sentencing theory; the social reaction to treason; and the
association between politics and punitiveness.  Contributors include:
Bonnie Perry, Don Gottfredson, David F. Greenberg, Marc Riedel, Jason
Rourke, Kip Schlegel, Vered Vinitsky-Seroussi, Leslie T. Wilkins, Marvin
E. Wolfgang, and Richard A. Wright."  - from the publisher's flyer. 


Vittorio Olgiati, Louis Orzack, and Mike Saks, 
PROFESSIONS, IDENTITY, AND ORDER IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 
(International Institute for the Sociology of Law 1998).

The volume examines a range of professional groups -- from law, accounting
and architecture to medicine, engineering, and the military -- and aims to
illuminate the extent to which professions contribute to the normative
order of society. Chapters include comparative analyses of professions
from a variety of nation-states and how global and regional trade
agreements affect regulatory processes in the nation-states supporting
them. 


Editor's Note: Unless otherwise noted,
descriptions were provided by the 
author(s).

_____________________________________________________________


Section Sessions for 
      ASA 1999

The Sociology of Law Section will have two sessions at next August's ASA
Meetings.  These will be the following: 

1) Law, Governance and Global Change -- Organizer, Robin Stryker,
Department of Sociology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242; e-mail: 
robin-stryker@uiowa.edu, telephone: 319-335-2489 or 319-335-4034, fax
319-335-2509.  NB: This will be an INVITED PANEL. 


2) Law as a Resource for Shaping and Reshaping Gender Relations --
Organizer, Lisa McIntyre, Department of Sociology, Washington State
University, Pullman Washington 99164-4020. telephone: 509-335-4595, fax:
509-335-6419 (Lisa does not use e-mail, but the Washington State Dept
e-mail address is soc@wsu.edu -- I would recommend only including address,
telephone and fax for Lisa This is an OPEN PAPER SUBMISSION SESSION.  It
isjointly sponsored with the Section on Sex and Gender, but Sociology of
Law gets credited with the session (i.e., it gets counted against us as
one ofour two sessions). 

In addition to the above, Sociology of Law is COSPONSORING a session that
gets credited to (counted against) the Section on Organizations,
Occupations and Work.  You will be receiving the pertinent information on
this one from Paula England.  This one too will be an OPEN PAPER
SUBMISSION SESSION. It will be some variation on the general theme of law
and social inequality (please wait for Paula to provide you with the
precise title and the organizer.)

The Sociology of Law Section is NOT having roundtables this year. 

______________________________________________________________

                           Teaching Law and
                          Society: Challenges
                           and Opportunities

                           by John Paul Ryan

"Law and Society" is a lively and growing area of scholarship that
connects broad segments of the social sciences, humanities, and the law
school.  As for most interdisciplinary areas, though, teaching the subject
is a challenge, because there is no field or single discipline.  Instead,
such fields as sociology, political science, anthropology, history,
psychology, economics, communications, literature and rhetoric all offer
particular theoretical and empirical insights into law and law's
relationship to society, culture, and the social order. 

     Nowhere is this challenge more evident than in efforts to
conceptualize and teach introductory courses in many of the organized
programs (majors or minors) of "law and society" now in place at
approximately sixty colleges and universities in the United States and
Canada.  There are few, if any, multidisciplinary texts available for such
a course.  John Bonsignore et al.'s Before the Law (Houghton Mifflin, 5th
ed., 1993) is occasionally used, as is the text by sociologist Steven
Vago, Law and Society (Prentice Hall, 5th ed., 1996), but most courses are
idiosyncratic with respect both to the books used and the topics covered. 
This may not be all bad, for as sociologist Nancy Reichman of the
University of Denver has argued, "It is not as important to cover a
field...as to introduce students to the questions that can be raised about
law and legal institutions." 

     Though there may be few good texts, there is a range of compelling
stories to draw upon in teaching law and society courses. From fiction,
consider recent serious novels such as Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of
Carolina (Dutton, 1992), Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World (G.K. Hall,
1995), and David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars (Harcourt Brace, 1994),
or such classics as William Golding's Lord of the Flies (Perigee, 1959)
and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Collins, 1995), as well as
any one of the many contemporary lawyer/courtroom "page-turners" from John
Grisham, Scott Turow, Jay Brandon and others.  Short stories by Leslie
Marmon Silko (e.g., "Tony's Story"), Katherine Anne Porter ("Noon Wine"),
and others also provide provocative, and perhaps more accessible, reading
matter for undergraduate courses.  Similarly, there are a variety of
powerful stories, both documentary and autobiographical in character,
about the role of law and lawyers to draw from, including Gerald Stern's
The Buffalo Creek Disaster (Random House, 1977), Patricia Williams' The
Alchemy of Race and Rights (Harvard, 1991), and most recently, Jonathan
Harr's A Civil Action (Random House, 1995).  And there are a wealth of
biographies of lawyers, judges and political activists seeking social
change through the law that personalize and concretize law, thereby
enabling students to learn more by seeing and coming to know people from
our past. 

     Cooperative teaching and learning practices are frequently a part of
law and society courses.  One can point to numerous examples of
team-teaching that enhance the interdisciplinary character of law and
society-type courses--e.g., "Theater of Justice: Constructing the Female
Offender", team-taught by a lawyer and biologist at the University of St.
Thomas, or "Women, Law and Culture," team-taught by an historian and
English professor at the University of New Hampshire.  Because law
intersects so many aspects of social and political systems, there are
frequent opportunities for faculty from different disciplines to work
together to conceptualize and teach courses. 

     Law and society courses are well suited to utilize various forms of
experiential education, including internships and service learning.  This
is so particularly because law represents not only a theoretical base of
knowledge but a concrete social institution, one which offers students the
opportunity for engagement in diverse community settings (e.g., public
interest law firms, courts, rape crisis centers, etc.).  These settings
also offer students a lens through which to study and assess the
differences between "law on the books" and "law in action," which have
attracted the sustained attention of jurisprudential scholars and
empirical researchers alike. 

     Finally, how has "law and society" teaching in the liberal arts been
influenced by recent intellectual movements in the law school, such as
critical race theory, critical legal studies, feminist jurisprudence,
etc.?  These movements present not only critiques of conventional
jurisprudential or doctrinal studies of law but also new perspectives on
the complex relationship between "law" and "society".  One of the
challenges is to bring these many individuals, fields, and perspectives
into better communication with one another, so as to enrich dialogues
about law now taking place both in the legal academy and in the liberal
arts. 

John Paul Ryan is Director of School Programs for the American Bar
Association Division for Public Education (jryan3@staff.abanet.org). 

[Note from Teaching Review Editor Marlynn May:  John Paul Ryan provides an
excellent overview of teaching law and society, including several
literature sources.  Since he wrote his essay, a Textbook Review Essay
entitled "Nine Law and Society/Sociology of Law Textbooks and Readers for
the 1990s: Comparative Review." appeared in Teaching Sociology,Vol. 26,
No. 4 (October): 354-380.  It complements Ryan's essay nicely. ]

___________________________________________________________________

Job Announcement:

   The Department of Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst is seeking a sociolegal scholar for a tenure-track assistant
professor position starting September 1, 1999. The candidate must be able
to teach a broad interdisciplinary approach to undergraduate legal studies
and have research interests in issues involving globalization and law. Of
particular interest is work that focuses in one or more of the following
areas: law and ethnic, environmental, or gender issues; dispute
resolution; or law in relationship to economic, technological, or cultural
interests. 

     The Department of Legal Studies at the University of
Massachusetts,Amherst, established in 1973, is one of the leading liberal
arts law programs in the U.S.  Applicants are required to have a J.D. or
Ph.D. degree. Additional advanced degrees strengthens the candidacy.
Review of applications will begin December 1, 1999 and continue until the
position is filled. 

The University of Massachusetts is an AA/EO employer. Women and minority
candidates are especially encouraged to apply. 

Send a letter of application, curriculum vitae, and names and addresses of
three references to: Ronald Pipkin, Chair, Search Committee, Department of
Legal Studies, Hampshire House, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA
01003

Department website: http://mantle.sbs.umass.edu/alee/legal

____________________________________________________________

                          Prize Announcement

                    Perelman Prize in Rhetoric and
                            Philosophy of Law

The Chaim Perelman Foundation offers a prize of $ 8,000 dedicated to
rewarding a work that represents an original elaboration of themes
developed by Chaim Perelman in the topics of Rhetorics, Argumentation
Theory, or the Philosophy of Law and Legal reasoning.  The work must be
written in French or English, and be already published in book form.  Four
copies of it shall be submitted to the Chaim Perelman Foundation (avenue
Brugmann 319-1180 Brussels, Belgium) before June 30, 1999.  The Foundation
will refer the book to international referees and will take the final
decision before the end of 1999.