Case Congregations and their Careers

Bibliographic Data

ID4085205
AuthorsM Galanter (0000-0002-1978-4453, corresponding author)
Year1990
Volume24
Issue2
Pages371-395
Publication date1990-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLaw & Society Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0023-9216 • E-ISSN: 1540-5893
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3053686
OpenAlexW2331741695
LanguageEN
Citations received15

This article explores the way that a set of cases arising from a specific event, product, or claim form a congregation of cases that displays common features and that traces a discernable career over time. Such a career is related to, but not uniquely determined by, the course of the social activity that underlies the type of case. The relation of activity and case congregation is mediated by a complex structure of disputing activity (including norms, cognitive dispositions, institutions of access, stakes and resources, social support, legal services, and more). In addition to these external influences, such litigation itself influences its future course by various effects on the underlying activity, on the organization of disputing about it, and on the legal setting. Such endogenous effects include holistic effects associated with the size and distribution of the congregation and career effects associated with the way that the congregation unfolds over time. Delineation of these various effects suggests that litigation lives "a life of its own," partly independent of underlying events in the outside world, but that the regularities in the litigation process are not reducible to a comprehensive pattern since the activity is interactive and strategic

Criminology · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems