Existing research on law creation has been framed from within a variety of divergent theoretical positions. Those taking the consensus perspective see law as a reflection of the collective views and interests of the community or general public. Those taking a conflict perspective see law as a reflection of powerful interests which result in the creation of laws to maintain various capitalist or ruling class interests. Pluralist theorists see law as the outcome of conflict and compromise between a diversity of groups fighting for power. These and other theoretical positions do not adequately account for the fact that law is also actively constituted through social relations and modes of discourse, including non-state normative orders. To date, there has been litte systematic research focussing on how legal and social norms influence each other. This project will address this issue through studying the construction of the Uniform Employment Termination Act. The project is designed to examine the ways that the philosophy and assumptions of private justice, in the form of industrial discipline and discharge rules and procedures, enter into the emergence and construction of law. Qualitative research methods will include ethnographic fieldwork, interviews with and observations of the Uniform Law Commissioners drafting committee, and analyses of all related documents used in drafting the law. This study provides a unique opportunity to examine the process of lawmaking as it occurs, rather than retrospectively reconstructing that process. The results should have important implications for the way other non-state social control forms, such as professional discipline, agency regulation, private tribunals, and commissions of inquiry might similarly penetrate the formation of other state law. Thus, the research has important theoretical and practical implications. In so far as it illuminates how private justice connects to state law, it will help inform policy considerations when considering the impact of legal and social change.
