Legal Culture: A Re-Examination of the Adversarial Perspective

Abstract

Analysts of courtroom processes typically focus on the predictive power of legal and extra-legal determinants upon actual case outcomes. The present research, by looking at practitioner responses to hypothetical felony cases, focuses on adversariness and local legal culture as predictors of attitudes toward case disposition time and sentencing. First, we examine Church's (1982) findings regarding legal cultures with the inclusion of statistical conrols, absent in his analysis. Second, we examine four issues salient to practitioners: preferred pace of litigation, preferred sentence for guilty pleas, attitudes toward 'just deserts", and practitioner interpersonal relations. Using the Eisenstein and Jacob (1977) typology of workgroup goals, indicants of these issues are separated into two categories: expressive and instrumental. We find that instrumental aspects are most strongly predicted by courtoom identity, in support of local legal culture. On the other hand, expressive aspects are most affected by practiioner type, in support of the adversarial model.