Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- PART I OVERVIEWS AND ASSESSMENTS OF FRIEDMAN'S WORK
- PART II APPLICATIONS OF CONCEPTS, INSIGHTS, AND METHODS IN FRIEDMAN'S WORK
- Legal Culture
- Total Justice
- 7 The Travails of Total Justice
- 8 “Total Justice” and Political Conservatism
- 9 Failures of War Tribunals
- PART III THE LEGAL PROFESSION
- PART IV LAW AND LARGE AREAS OF SOCIAL LIFE
- PART V FACTS FROM THE UNDERGROUND: DIGGING LEGAL HISTORY OUT OF THE CELLAR
- PART VI PERSPECTIVES FROM OTHER CONCEPTUAL WORLDS
- Index
- Titles in the series
- References
8 - “Total Justice” and Political Conservatism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction
- PART I OVERVIEWS AND ASSESSMENTS OF FRIEDMAN'S WORK
- PART II APPLICATIONS OF CONCEPTS, INSIGHTS, AND METHODS IN FRIEDMAN'S WORK
- Legal Culture
- Total Justice
- 7 The Travails of Total Justice
- 8 “Total Justice” and Political Conservatism
- 9 Failures of War Tribunals
- PART III THE LEGAL PROFESSION
- PART IV LAW AND LARGE AREAS OF SOCIAL LIFE
- PART V FACTS FROM THE UNDERGROUND: DIGGING LEGAL HISTORY OUT OF THE CELLAR
- PART VI PERSPECTIVES FROM OTHER CONCEPTUAL WORLDS
- Index
- Titles in the series
- References
Summary
In Total Justice (1985), Lawrence M. Friedman describes a dramatic change in American legal culture. Friedman defines legal culture as ordinary people's views about what law is, should be, and should provide. Over the last century or so, he contends, American legal culture has come to include a widespread demand for “total justice.” In turn that demand has generated thoroughgoing change in the law and legal life of the country. One strand in the legal culture of total justice is “a general expectation of recompense” for arbitrarily inflicted devastating losses, particularly accidentally imposed personal injuries. A second strand is the “expectation of fair treatment.” Friedman argues that Americans increasingly expect nondiscriminatory treatment and some version of “due process of law” when institutions deny them some important benefit. They expect fair treatment not only in courts and government agencies but also “in all settings: in hospitals and prisons, in schools, on the job, in apartment buildings.”
In its focus on popular legal culture, Total Justice reiterates a theme that runs through the entire library of Friedman's books and articles: At least in the United States, developments in popular legal culture, much more than the theorizing of legal scholars and judges, are the primary drivers of legal change. In turn, the evolution of legal culture is driven primarily by social changes that affect the day-to-day texture of life. Thus the most powerful insights in the book concern the social changes that have engendered a popular legal culture attuned to total justice.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Law, Society, and HistoryThemes in the Legal Sociology and Legal History of Lawrence M. Friedman, pp. 118 - 136Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
References
(2005). Is Adversarial Legalism Path Dependent? Congressional Inertia and Court-Based Tort Reform during the Asbestos Crisis. Paper Prepared for the 2005 Annual American Political Science Association Conference, Washington, DC.
and (1997). Accidental Justice: The Dilemmas of Tort Law. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
and (2005). Waiting for Another L.B.J., New York Times, July 30.
(2002). Lawyers, Lawsuits, and Legal Rights: The Battle over Litigation in American Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
, , and (1995). The Costs of Excess Medical Claims for Automobile Personal Injuries. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Institue for Civil Justice.Google Scholar
, Jr. (1995). Class Wars: The Dilemma of the Mass Tort Class Action, 95 Colum. L. Rev. 95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (1998). The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
(2010). The Litigation State: Public Regulation and Private Lawsuits in the U.S. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2001). Who Pays for Health Care Reform? in , ed., The New Politics of the Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(2004). A Race to the Bottom, a Race to the Top or the March to a Minimum Floor? in and , eds. (2004). Dynamics of Regulatory Change: How Globalization Affects National Regulatory Policies. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
(2002). The Divided Welfare State: The Battle over Public and Private Social Benefits in the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2004). Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy Retrenchment in the United Stats. 98 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (2004). Distorting the Law: Politics, Media and the Litigation Crisis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(2000). Business on Trial: The Civil Jury and Corporate Responsibility. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
and (1988). No Fault, No Fee: The Legal Profession and Federal No-Fault Insurance Legislation, in and , eds., The Social Responsibilities of Lawyers. Westbury, NY: Foundation Press.Google Scholar
(2001). Adversarial Legalism: The American Way of Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
and (2000). The Politics of Tobacco Regulation in the United States, in and , eds., Regulating Tobacco. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(1996). A Compromise on Restricting Liability Suits, New York Times, March 14.
, , and , eds. (1995). Poverty, Inequality, and the Future of Social Policy: Western States in the New World Order. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
and (1999). Is the Tort System in Crisis? New Empirical Evidence, 60 Ohio State L.J. 315.Google Scholar
and (2001). The Comparative Political Economy of Pension Reform, in , ed., The New Politics of the Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
and (2002). Law and Society in Transition: Toward Responsive Law. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.Google Scholar
and (2005). Philip Corboy and the Construction of the Plaintiff's Personal Injury Bar, 30 Law & Soc. Inquiry269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1994). Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and (1989). From Individual to System Blame: A Cultural Analysis of Historical Change in the Law of Torts, 1 J. Pol'y Hist. 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1985). The Invention of Enterprise Liability: A Critical History of the Intellectual Foundations of Modern Tort Law, 14 J. Legal Stud. 461.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1992) “Do We Really Know Anything About the Behavior of the Tort Litigation System – And Why Not?” 140 Pa. L. Rev. 1147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1987). The Meaning of the Law Explosion: On Friedman's Total Justice, 1987 Am. B. Found. Res. J. 601.Google Scholar
(1996). As Clinton Vows to Veto Products Liability Bill, Some Ask if He's Too Close to Trial Lawyers, Wall Street Journal, March 22.
(2005). Lawyers Seek Loopholes in Class Action Overhaul, CQ Weekly, Feb. 28.
(2002). Path Dependence, Precedent, and Judicial Power, in and , eds., On Law, Politics, and Judicialization. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(1999). Judges as Tort Law Un-Makers: Recent California Experience with “New” Torts, 49 DePaul L. Rev. 455.Google Scholar
(2005). A Comparative Look at Pain and Suffering Awards. Presentation at Clifford Symposium on Pain and Suffering, DePaul Law School, April.
(2003). The Hare and the Tortoise Revisited: The New Politics of Consumer and Environmental Regulation in Europe, 33 Br. J. Pol. Sci. 557.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1995). Trading Up: Consumer and Environmental Regulation in a Global Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
and , eds. (2004). Dynamics of Regulatory Change: How Globalization Affects National Regulatory Policies. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
(1996). Freer Markets, More Rules: Regulatory Reform in Advanced Industrial Countries. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
(1990). A World of Difference – The Public Philosophies and Political Behaviors of Rival American Cultures, in , ed. The New American Political System, Washington, DC: AEI Press.Google Scholar
and (1987). The Defeat of the California Justices, Judicature April/May.
(2001). Labour Market Regimes under Threat: Sources of Continuity in Germany, Britain and Sweden, in , ed., The New Politics of the Welfare State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar