ABSTRACT
Nowadays, one way or another, more than ever before, law touches all of us. The con-tact may be pleasant or unpleasant, tangible or intangible, direct or indirect, but law is nonetheless a constant force and presence in our lives. For a sociological understanding of law in society, we need to know about the social organization of law, the types of social arrangements and relations involved in the legal process, and the social characteristics of people who interpret and administer the law (see, for example, Abadinsky, 2008; Higgins and Mackinem, 2010; Sarat, 2004, 2011). The intention of this chapter is to look at the social organization of legal systems in the framework of the judicial, legislative, administrative, and enforcement agencies that carry out the official (and, at times, the unofficial) business of law.
