No abstract

Interest-group interactions may be examined in ways comparable to the analysis of conflict and coalition in other areas of political science. We seek to measure and compare the structure of interest-group participation and conflict in four domains of U.S. domestic policy: agriculture, energy, health, and labor. Data are drawn from a survey of 806 representatives of organizations with interests in federal policy, supplemented by interviews with 301 government officials in the same four domains. Several types of data are adduced regarding the intensity and partisanship of group conflict in each domain and the range and variety of group participation. Coalitional patterns are described and the mutual positioning of different kinds of organization—peak-association groups versus more specialized trade, professional, or commodity groups, for example—are examined.

Inside counsel to major corporations have accrued more power and status within the legal profession, but continue to struggle for influence and legitimacy within the corporation. In-depth interviews with lawyers and managers in large businesses reveal that inside counsel construct different professional roles for themselves depending on circumstances. We identify three ideal types of such roles: they act as cops (limiting their advice to legal mandates), counsel (combining legal and business advice), or entrepreneurs (giving priority to business objectives rather than legal analysis). The entrepreneurial role and its associated discourse seem to mark a departure from earlier studies of inside counsel. We argue that entrepreneurial tendencies reflect the efforts of corporate counsel to adapt their images and lawyering styles to the prerogatives of contemporary management. Accordingly, inside lawyers limit their gatekeeping functions, emphasize their dedication to managerial objectives, and defer to management's judgments about legal risk. Nonetheless, inside counsel retain their professional identities as lawyers and rarely express an interest in moving into corporate management. Inside counsel are “professionals” who present themselves as enthusiastically committed to corporate objectives.

This article analyzes the outcomes of employment discrimination lawsuits filed in federal court from 1988 to 2003. It goes beyond previous research by examining case filings rather than published opinions and by treating case outcome as a sequential variable. Our analysis is informed by four theoretical models: formal legal, rational action/economic, legal mobilization, and critical realist. We employ a discrete-time event-history model with random effects to estimate whether a case will end at a particular stage. We find that employment discrimination litigation consists overwhelmingly of individual cases, a majority of which end in a small settlement. The outcomes of cases are difficult to predict at the outset of litigation. Legal representation and collective legal mobilization have powerful effects on outcome, but collective legal mobilization is rare. These results are most consistent with the critical realist perspective. Our analysis suggests that employment discrimination litigation maintains law's jurisdiction over claims of workplace discrimination while not providing a significant remedy or an authoritative resolution in most cases.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Although the number of racial and ethnic minority lawyers in the legal profession has greatly increased, concern remains about their low percentage among partners in elite law firms. Using a nationally representative sample of young American lawyers, we compare a human capital–based theory, which emphasizes measures of merit, and an institutional discrimination–based theory, which focuses on differences in partner contact and mentoring. The results indicate that institutional discrimination theory is the better way of understanding racial and ethnic differences in lawyer retention. Future affirmative action programs need to focus not just on access but also the processes within large firms if minority presence is to be increased.