The politics of the contemporary alternative dispute resolution (ADR) movement within legal institutions is examined as well as conflicts created in legal education by the modern social scientific study of law. While many in the legal profession consider ADR as a threat, ADR has extended the reach of the legal field by solving problems less expensively and in shorter time than traditional legal trials. The work of pioneer scholars in the anthropology of law is discussed, and the authors argue that the traditional jurisprudence of rights, as represented by the courts, has been replaced by a jurisprudence of interests and needs represented by ADR. A jurisprudence based on interests and needs will ultimately strengthen the legal profession. 267 footnotes.