CLRP drew samples of Federal and State lawsuits concluded during 1978 from the records or files of five Federal district courts and from either one or two State courts of general jurisdiction within each of the Federal districts. Only middle-ranged disputes involving monetary claims over $1,000 or substantively important nonmonetary issues of racial or sexual discrimination were sampled. The total sample was 1,649 cases, half of which were Federal cases. "The Justice Broker" surveys the characteristics of civil litigators, investigates the contexts and kinds of work they perform, and probes the outcomes of litigation for the lawyers and their clients to develop an alternative image of lawyering. "Let's Make a Deal" first presents an empirical portrait of how ordinary civil cases are negotiated and then assesses how well the literature on game theory, economic models of bargaining, and the sociology of negotiations fit Kritzer's depiction of settlements. In ordinary civil litigation, Kritzer argues, attorneys function as brokers. Brokers, he explains, are intermediaries who, for a fee, help to transfer money or property between parties or aid in transforming other interests between parties. The broker image has considerable appeal; it is a worthy contribution that gathers together several strands in the empirical literature and weaves them into a single idea of potential value. Both books emphasize the business interests of litigators and how these interests shape litigation; however, there are unresolved issues and ambiguities in both books that stem from this emphasis and that pivot around the overlapping influences of fee arrangements, the type of client who employs the lawyer, and whether the client is a plaintiff or defendant, and the nature of the legal dispute on attorney behavior. More than anything else, these concerns reflect the limited potential of the CLRP data for disentangling the effects of these confounding influences. 20 references