The chapter explores how and why Russians mobilize law and/or turn to the courts when faced with problems. The analysis is based on a series of nine focus groups conducted in 2014 in Moscow, Voronezh, and Novosibirsk. Participants were presented with two scenarios and asked to put themselves in the place of the claimant. The first involved a faulty mobile phone and the second presented a family squabble over a summer home after the death of an elderly relative. In both cases, the participants saw litigation as a last-ditch alternative. They were generally confident of their ability to find the relevant law on the internet and to use it when confronting those who had taken advantage of the claimant. But few were willing to turn to lawyers, fearing the cost and doubting their competence. The participants’ reluctance to go to court was not primarily due to fears of political interference or corruption. They worried about the time and emotional energy required to see a lawsuit through to its conclusion. These results are consistent with the findings of legal sociologists in other countries, suggesting that the rhetoric about the dysfunction of Russian courts is overblown, at least for fairly mundane civil cases.