From legal realism to law and society: Reshaping law for the last stages of the social activist state

Law & Society Review, 1998 by Garth, Bryant, Sterling, Joyce

Those most actively promoting law competed within sociology against those whose positions did not draw on legal connections or claims to expertise. Sociologists close to law, such as Schwartz, Selznick, and Skolnick, thus sought to build law in sociology. Their activities affected choices in textbooks, hiring decisions, editorships of journals, and in general what would be considered legitimate as part of the core of the discipline. But when these and other individuals were pulled to law, which they were already close to in the first place, the now dominant group in sociology could bid them good riddance. As suggested earlier, the sociological traditionalists were already nervous about whether what Yegge and even Schwartz did was "sociology." As the example in Berkeley also suggests, the sociologists in the mainstream ultimately failed to embrace those who moved into the legal world. Sociology regrouped and looked somewhat askance on those who had sold out98 to law or to applied sociology. As Selznick stated, sociology "lost interest in law." Or put another way, the sociologists who were closest to law ultimately decided-or saw a better opportunity under the circumstancesto join forces with law rather than try to compete against law from within mainstream sociology.

The same was true in a different way in anthropology. Laura Nader had effectively used law initially in anthropology to try to create a subdiscipline (see Collier 1994), and she trained a number of students to become legal anthropologists. Law was given legitimacy for a brief time in the center of anthropology.99 But the power of law and the new institution of the LSA pulled many of these individuals away from the discipline. They not only stopped attending anthropology meetings, but also they stopped going abroad for their research. As Nader complained, the lack of a presence of law within anthropology made it relatively easy for the anthropology of law to die within anthropology. At the same time, anthropologists have become very prominent in the leadership of the LSA.

In political science, the story is somewhat different, but the result is the same. The traditional public law scholars had studied law, but they were losing their power in competition with, on one side, the new behaviorists, and, on the other, the law schools that were now more involved in constitutional theory. Traditional public law was being pushed out in terms of prestige in the discipline. Some political scientists were converting to new kinds of judicial and legal studies, and they gained attention in the discipline. People like Sam Krislov, Victor Rosenblum, Herb Jacob, and Joel Grossman were investing in finding a new political science relevant to questions of civil rights and urban problems. Ultimately, however, they were drawn to the LSA. They then typically invested much more in the LSA than in revitalizing their collective position in political science. Political scientists who became presidents of LSA-in addition to Rosenblum-included Samuel Krislov and Herb Jacob, and Joel Grossman served as Editor of the Review. But the public law section of political science languished, cut off from legal scholarship in the law schools and unable to regain the prestige it once had.