ABSTRACT
Much of the contemporary sociology of law adheres to the perspectives of sociology's founders, at least, in theoretical and conceptual emphases. The approach of Weber has spawned studies that encompass interests in the classical Weberian topics of bureaucracy, rationality, and legitimation, as well as works that address his more micro-level interests in subjective understanding and interpretation. Durkheim' s legacy is that of functionalism and its variants, such as studies that address the relationship between social forms, political structures, and reactions to crime, and any approaches (including those in social anthropology) that employ the notion of "consensus" as a basis for law. The most productive strains in legal sociology today-the approaches of conflict theory, critical jurisprudence, feminism, globalization theory, and poststructuralism-are based (or in critical reaction against) assumptions and issues derived from Marx. On balance, the
Despite the extent of traditional themes in contemporary legal sociology, however, one notable difference between the founding fathers and their heirs is the much greater current emphasis on empirical research. In addition to, and sometimes in place of, grand theorizing are more delimited studies that attend law at a more minute level. Lawyers' work and the organization and stratification of the legal profession, courts and dispute processing, policing, penology, and governmental regulation have all been addressed, by contemporary sociologists, empirically (cf. Cotterrell, 1992). These investigations do sometimes clearly reflect theoretical orientations, but many are hardly informed by "theory" at all, as traditionally conceived. The most salient trend in the history of the sociology of law is not, in my view, the growth, demise, or resurgence of any particular theoretical perspective, but rather its transformation from a subfield concerned with evincing larger sociological theories and other more foundational issues to one thdt has become so (hyper-)empirically oriented that its basic theoretical motivations have, in many cases, been lost.
