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- Title
HEARING THE HIDDEN AGENDA: THE ETHNOGRAPHIC INVESTIGATION OF PROCEDURE.
- Authors
CONLEY, JOHN M.; O'BARR, WILLIAM M.
- Abstract
The article discusses an investigation into the litigants' "hidden agendas" or the unappreciated factors that cause people to resort to the legal system and the undisclosed objectives pursued within the system. It presents extracts from a corpus of ethnographic data that cast doubt on the assumption that litigants understand the purpose of the law and are frustrated by the flaws in its delivery. It cites a three-year study of lay people in the legal process that focuses on the general issues of lay people's understandings of the law and their reactions to the legal process. It suggests that a qualitative analysis of an unrehearsed litigant speech is an effective means of uncovering the range of litigant concerns and should be an essential component of an empirical study of legal procedure.
- Subjects
JUDICIAL process; LEGAL procedure; ACTIONS &; defenses (Law); PARTIES to actions; LAW; QUALITATIVE research
- Publication
Law & Contemporary Problems, 1988, Vol 51, Issue 4, p181
- ISSN
0023-9186
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/1191889