ABSTRACT
The first U.S. small claims courts, defined by relatively small amounts of money claimed and relaxation of the rules requiring legal representation, were established in Kansas in 1912 and Cleveland in 1913. The move toward informality, originally akin to what Weber described as Khadi justice (Rheinstein 1969), spread across the country. Small claims courts, like other legally informal institutions (Harrington 1982), were expected to supply a more substantive rationality to courts grown rigid, and to give small businesses and private citizens in civil disputes (i.e., non-criminal, monetarily defined conflicts) access to the power of the state.
