ABSTRACT
This general description of the social and political context surrounding law and courts in Latin America's history is, of course, a compressed ac count of a much more complicated story, which includes the occasional social revolution and the rise of populist leaders who sometimes passed social legislation,16 but even such events did little to fundamentally trans form a legal system skewed towards the rich and the powerful. From this state of affairs emerged the traditional perception within progressive circles of law and courts as mostly irrelevant - if not hostile - to social transformation.
