An introduction describes the study and discusses sampling, weighting, file structure, information processing, frequencies, and codebook information. General study objectives were to determine levels of public knowledge about courts; test reactions to situations which might or might not prevent recourse to courts; determine the incidence, nature, and assessments of court experience; describe and account for evaluations of court performances; indicate attitudes toward legal actors; and indicate reactions to alternative means of dispute resolution. Two samples were drawn for the study: a national sample of the general public, described in the codebook; and a 'special publics' sample of judges, lawyers, and community leaders. A single-stage, stratified, replicated random sample was used. The data come in two formats: a card-image file and an OSIRIS data set. Appendixes contain recoded questionnaire items, sample and census distributions, a list of general-public interview sites, a frequencies addendum, and the questionnaire.