After Legal Consciousness

Abstract

▪ Abstract Legal consciousness as a theoretical concept and topic of empirical research developed to address issues of legal hegemony, particularly how the law sustains its institutional power despite a persistent gap between the law on the books and the law in action. Why do people acquiesce to a legal system that, despite its promises of equal treatment, systematically reproduces inequality? Recent studies have both broadened and narrowed the concept's reach, while sacrificing much of the concept's critical edge and theoretical utility. Rather than explaining how the different experiences of law become synthesized into a set of circulating schemas and habits, the literature tracks what particular individuals think and do. Because the relationships among consciousness and processes of ideology and hegemony often go unexplained, legal consciousness as an analytic concept is domesticated within what appear to be policy projects: making specific laws work better for particular groups or interests.

The effects of priming legal concepts on perceived trust and competitiveness, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior

“…The present studies contribute to the existing psycholegal research literature by supporting the idea that legal consciousness has important implications for everyday cognition and action. Indeed, As Silbey (2005) noted, -law is not merely an instrument or tool working on social relations, but is also a set of conceptual categories and schema that help construct, compose, communicate, and interpret social relations‖ (p. 327).…”

How Law Shapes Experiences of Parenthood for Same-Sex Couples

“…This framework seeks to address not only how the law is understood by people in everyday life but also the effects of people's understandings of the law (Ewick & Silbey, 1998;Silbey, 2005). Rather than view the law and social life as separate entities, this theory understands them as mutually constitutive (Harrington & Yngvesson, 1990).…”

Precarious Claims: The Promise and Failure of Workplace Protections in the United States

“…The concept of legal consciousness has become somewhat shopworn in the field of law and society, but it is still useful for understanding how laws sustain their institutional power and how individuals understand their rights under the law and make decisions as to whether and how to exercise them (Silbey 2005(Silbey , 2008). One's position in the social and economic order can influence legal consciousness; for instance, poorer individuals (including nonwhites, who tend to be less affluent) engage lawyers and the courts less often.…”

“…Generally speaking, this phenomenon doesn't have to do with resources necessarily but rather with the types of claims these groups are likely to pursue (Miller and Sarat 1980). However, as Susan S. Silbey's (2005) ten-year-old but still very relevant review discusses, there is weak evidence that entire groups of people-women, people of color, workersnecessarily all engage the law in the same way.…”