The Law and Society Anthology

The Law and Society Anthology: Justice in 21st Century America and Beyond provides students with a curated collection of readings that reinforce important legal concepts and provide insight into debates in law and society.

The anthology is organized into seven chapters that are meant to parallel and complement the curriculum for a course in law and society. The opening chapters asks what law is and includes stories about disputes that E. Adamson Hoebel and Karl N. Llewellyn give in their classic study of the Cheyenne. Chapter 2 addresses law and theory by including the first lecture from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’s The Common Law. The next chapter considers the often-challenging life of an attorney with readings from Jerome E. Carlin’s Lawyers on Their Own, while Chapter 4 includes readings from Barbara Babcock, who examines why defense attorneys do their jobs. In Chapter 5, a piece by law professor Erwin Chemerinsky offers an overlooked perspective on the debate over whether there is too much litigation in America. Chapter 6 also includes an unexpected point of view by anthropologist Stanley Diamond in the debate on whether law follows society or vice versa. The final chapter includes a reading by Professor Frank Baumgartner and colleagues on racial profiling and policing.

Developed to help students think critically about modern law and debates, The Law and Society Anthology is an ideal resource for courses in law, criminal justice, political science, and related fields.