Relation of law and society

Two litigants exhausted by years in court now increasingly walk into mediation instead — a shift that shows law responding to a social reality (overburdened courts, a preference for faster, less adversarial resolution) rather than society simply obeying whatever law dictates. This topic asks you to state, plainly, what this module's whole title assumes: how exactly do law and society act on each other?

In two minutes

Law and society exist in a continuous two-way relationship — society shapes what law is possible, necessary and acceptable, while law in turn organises, controls and sometimes reshapes social life, with newer developments like Alternative Dispute Resolution showing how legal practice itself adapts to social demand.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Sociology on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.