Trapped in the Law: Legal Actors' Attitudes Toward Legal Practice as a Solution for Social Problems

46 Pages Posted: 10 May 2007

Date Written: May 9, 2007

Abstract

Courtroom dynamics literature has studied the interactions within the 'courtroom workgroup' - prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges, attributing legal practices in the courtroom to the effects of power struggles and professional interest conflicts between the actors. This paper reintroduces into the picture the important factor of formal law and legal indoctrination, claiming that much of the actors' opinions and behaviors can be attributed to their inability to introduce external perceptions of the problems they address into the legal framework within which they operate. The paper is based on 40 in-depth interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys and ex-judges in the Israeli military justice system about cases involving disobedience to military service - desertion, unauthorized absences and conscientious objection. The interviews reveal the overpowering effect of legal indoctrination on the perception of these problems and their solutions. Almost all interviewees use the doctrinal legal categorization as the main definition of the problems they deal with, despite their understanding of the political and socio-economic dimensions of the problems. Their policy suggestions are equally limited. Almost all interviewees perceive a tension between their perception and the broader, social definitions of the problem, and have different ways of resolving it: loyalism, bureaucratic thinking, idealism, cynicism and limited innovation. The findings shed light on the impact of legal communications and disciplinary discourse on individual perceptions, and support the usage of discursive theory - focusing on Luhmann and Teubner's autopoiesis - as a strong explanation of professional behavior and interaction, even at the individual level.

Keywords: courts, legal actors, lawyers, social problems, systems, system theory, cognitive dissonance, courtroom dynamics, criminal justice, military law, Israel

JEL Classification: K14, K41, K4

Suggested Citation

Aviram, Hadar, Trapped in the Law: Legal Actors' Attitudes Toward Legal Practice as a Solution for Social Problems (May 9, 2007). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=985369 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.985369

Hadar Aviram (Contact Author)

UC Law, San Francisco ( email )

200 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
United States

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