The study also builds on Pound's social engineering concepts and Mannheim's functional rationality concepts. The concept of a rational production process (the t-process) for the production of legal decisions is defined in terms of six component elements: norms, means-ends calculus, knowledge, group participation, subdivision and specialization, and quality control. The juvenile court is examined as a deviant case, in which rational production processes in one area of law were abandoned around 1900 and reinstated in the 1960's. Evidence concerning the nature of the juvenile court's production process and its consequences is drawn largely from Supreme Court decisions and from writings by advocates and critics of the juvenile court. Results indicated that prior to the 1960's, the juvenile court consciously sought innovatively shaped ways of helping children in trouble. It rejected, however, the use of a technically structured judicial process, specialized roles for counsel, and effective use of appellate review. Instead, the court relied on broad judicial discretion. The unrevised juvenile court thus aimed at producing a superior form of judicial justice for children, but did so through use of legally unconventional means. The unrevised juvenile court was ineffective with respect to the successful performance of such organizational tasks as maintaining dependable large scale production and increasing production. The court thus failed to show that its simplified process had the productive competence achievable through a t-process. Empirical research, futher remarks, and related information are appended. Footnotes and a list of 348 references are included. (Author abstract modified)