Research on dispute transformation over the past decade suggests that disputes are reconceptualized as they pass through the legal system. Studies of legal negotiation and lawyer-client interaction indicate that lawyers play a central role in this transformation process. Yet we know very little about the ways that lawyers carry on this work and about the factors that influence the variation in their practices and legal outcomes. Drs. Mather, Maiman, and McEwen are collaborating on a unique project to address these issues. Using divorce law practice as the empirical base, their objective is to understand the varying ways in which lawyers intervene between clients and the legal system and the consequences of their influence on the outcome of divorces. The investigators will examine the work of divorce lawyers in two states with different legal procedures for divorce--mandatory mediation and infrequent voluntary mediation. Through extensive interviews with 150 lawyers, the character of and variation in divorce lawyering in six counties will be examined. The investigators will identify how much variation can be attributed to differences in legal procedures or to characteristics of individual practitioners, their practices and clients, or to the local legal cultures in which they operate. The degree to which variations in lawyer behavior bear on the substance of legal outcomes will also be tested. The cross- sectional data among lawyers and across courts and states will be complemented by investigation of changes in divorce procedures and outcomes over the past decade as they are reflected in court records of samples of cases from 1980, 1984, and 1988. This research draws from and contributes to several rich traditions of sociolegal research involving the court system, the legal profession, dispute processing and transformation, and theories of legal change and implementation. The study of lawyering--the goals, strategies, tactics, and practices of working lawyers--in the context of legal and institutional change will help draw these traditions together. Because the study examines lawyer conduct within the context of a variety of related constraints, its scientific value is enhanced beyond simply understanding the divorce phenomenon. From a policy perspective, a study of divorce lawyers' roles as rights advocates and dispute settlers is timely because legal entitlements are being expanded and redefined simultaneously with strong encouragement and expansion of divorce mediation. Since there is some evidence that levels of child support and levels of satisfaction of divorcing women are lower after mediation, the study could have far reaching practical impact.
