This study examines the use of a local court by working-class and lower-class residents of a western Massachusetts town. The analysis draws on several months of ethnographic research at the court and in surrounding communities. It focuses on "show cause" hearings held at the courthouse to determine whether, in cases where there has been no arrest, complaints brought by citizens and police are sufficiently serious to warrant issuance of a formal criminal charge. The hearings demonstrate how citizens interpret and use State law in the maintenance of family and neighborhood order and how court staff, police, and other local officials use various criteria to construct the official legal meaning of the same events. The analysis accounts for differences in official and local perceptions of events and explains the production of law as a process in which both citizens and legal officials are involved. 9 footnotes.