Definitions of law and their consequences are examined including those defining law as modern process, social control, coercion, justice or procedural justice, social process, and reinstitutionalized custom. Custom, structuralist, and critical/conflict theories of law are examined in-depth and illustrated in examples. Major predictions of the three approaches are compared and discussed. Studies of the impact of law are reviewed and considered with respect to the unevenness and unpredictability of legal impact and the effect of law on attitudes. Problems in assessing legal impact are discussed, and the effect of law enforcers and interpreters and targets on legal impacts is delineated. Dispute resolution, formal and informal, is examined within the framework provided by game theory, bargaining, and strategy analysis; and both experimental and cross-cultural studies of dispute settlement are reviewed. Differing interpretations for the development of increasing complexity in society and the law (e.g., modernization, pluralism, ethnocentrism) are identified and discussed with specific proposals for simplifying legal institutions and processes. Autonomy and stratification within the legal profession are evaluated as they relate to functionalist and conflict theories of law. Finally, cognitive developmental and equity theories are reviewed in relation to the law and particularly conflict theories. Chapter summaries, references, and subject and author indexes.