Personal injury lawyers aid clients who see themselves as victims of medical, commercial, or other forms of negligence and who seek compensation through the civil justice system. Previous studies have suggested that these lawyers are highly selective, accepting only a small percentage of potential cases with which they are presented. Yet little is known about the actual process of screening. How do lawyers decide which cases to accept and which to decline? Do lawyers agree on the factors that make a good case and those which make a bad case? How might local legal and cultural environments influence the screening process? These questions, and related issues of access, inequality, policy, and justice, are at the core of this dissertation.Using in-depth interviews and an experimental vignette study given to 83 lawyers who specialize in medical malpractice and products liability, I examine the case screening process, paying particular attention to the roles of tort reform and the legal cultures and environments in which lawyers work. Half the lawyers I interviewed practice in states which are considered to be difficult jurisdictions for the practice of personal injury law due to tort reform and conservative political climates (Texas and Colorado), while the other half work in states that have been relatively unaffected by tort reform and are considered to be more "plaintiff friendly" (Pennsylvania and Massachusetts).Lawyers respond not only to legal rules and changes to those rules, but also to their perceptions of how jurors will respond to and evaluate their case. My analyses show that while lawyers in both types of states accept roughly the same percentage of cases, they do so using different approaches and theories of liability. When making distinctions between good and bad cases, lawyers in states without tort reform emphasize the importance of a client's "likeability" and jury appeal, while lawyers in states with tort reform place more importance on characteristics related to the defendant, particularly the strength of liability and causation. I address the implications of intended and unintended consequences of tort "reform" for inequality, access, and the growth or inhibition of tort law itself.

Given the overwhelming financial and human costs of crime committed through the incorporated entity, this thesis explores corporate criminal liability in criminal law as a mechanism of social control for corporate crime. First, this thesis traces the fundamental claims regarding corporate criminal liability in both the jurisprudential and sociological literatures in an effort to explore how law applies liability in a criminal context to the incorporated entity. Second, the contemporary corporate criminal liability landscape in Canada is examined. In particular, an examination of Bill C-45 as codified corporate criminal liability and as criminal law in action is empirically grounded in a detailed review of both the black letter law of corporate criminal liability and the judicial case documents on prosecutions against incorporated entities for corporate crimes. Finally, this thesis analyzes the socio-legal environment of corporate criminal liability through its construction and operation within Canadian criminal law. Overall, as a result of the legal, cultural, political, and economic privileges of the incorporated entity, corporate criminal liability is a product of a socio-legal environment that inhibits the ability of criminal law to be an effective mechanism of social control for corporate crime. Only when corporate criminal liability recognizes the complexities of the social, economic, and organizational structures and practices that are shaping corporate criminal activities can it become an effective mechanism for regulating the most harmful corporate misconduct. Otherwise, as this thesis demonstrates, corporate criminal liability will continue to be all bark and no bite. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2014-06-17 16:56:40.627

The city centre has diminished in importance as a retail and leisure destination due to increased competition, especially from out-of-town developments. It suffers from the disadvantages of inaccessibility and less competitive pricing. Additional to this, it is possible that the city centre is being avoided due to a fear of crime. This thesis recognises that a fear of criminal victimisation, along with a fear of intimidation has a detrimental influence on the vitality, and consequent viability of the city centre. The research takes the form of a broad contextual review of the problem. To date, this has not been undertaken for a U. K. city. The city of Swansea provides the main focus of an applied geographical study. A comparison is developed between the actual incidence of crime, as recorded by the Police, and the fear of crime within the city centre. Consequently, the survey takes on two distinct forms. Firstly, an analysis of crime records is undertaken, identifying vehicle crime, and theft from shops as principal concerns. Additionally, violent crime is recognised as a problem of the evening economy. The second part of the study takes the form of a household questionnaire survey. This identifies the use of the city centre, and the extent to which fear of crime is recognised as an issue. A geography of perceived anxiety, regarding personal safety and car crime, is constructed for both the daytime and night environments. 'Hot spots' of fear are identified at the retail periphery and at pedestrian subways. During the evening, anxieties are accentuated at concentrations of public house and night club activity. The findings of both parts of the survey are drawn together, with implications considered in terms of planning and design. As the thesis is a review of the problem, areas of possible further research are also identified.

Anna Wagnerová Morálka a právo Abstract Ethics and law My thesis deals with the mutual relation between ethics and law from the perspective of sociology, ethics as a field of research and jurisprudence. So I created an outline of various views on the subject from the point of view of all three respective disciplines. The sociological view examines society in which the relation between specific ethical standards and legal norms take place, the ethical and philosophical perspective, which sees the law and morality question from the ethical point of view and view of jurisprudence whith its own understanding of the issue. The approache of sociology is beneficial in its effort to depict things as they are, not as they should be. Ethics and jurisprudence approach to the outside world from the normative perspectives, that are however derived from different sets of norms. The present thesis i divided into four chapters. The first chapter presents sociology as a scholar discipline, explains its relationship to law and jurisprudence and explains some basic sociological concepts, such as social group, social action and regulatory system. This defines the space where both legal and ethical standards are regulated. The following chapter deals with ethics, and presents the basic concepts of ethics and morals, and ethics...

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo demonstrar como o direito, ao passo em que exerce função essencial como instrumento de dominação entre classes sociais, apresenta-se também como importante instrumento de resistência política da classe trabalhadora. Tal importância ultrapassa a simples efetividade das normas no campo jurídico e ganha especial relevância na forma como se traduzem juridicamente as lutas de classes, o que faz com que as reivindicações políticas transformadas em direitos, por mais que em grande medida se neutralizem de acordo com os interesses hegemônicos, permaneçam no horizonte político da sociedade, alimentando a tensão por transformação social. Para tanto, este trabalho percorre um itinerário teórico dividido em três movimentos. Inicialmente, estuda a forma como se constitui e complexifica a noção de ideologia nas obras de Karl Marx, desde as obras iniciais até sua reflexão mais madura. O segundo movimento é dedicado a localizar o papel exercido pelo direito no conjunto da ideologia social e indaga as possibilidades de uma teoria da ideologia jurídica. Em seu terceiro e último movimento, a fim de demonstrar concretamente a problemática da tese, dedica-se à investigação da relação entre ambiguidade e resistência no caso dos direitos sociais, em especial os direitos dos trabalhadores previstos na Constituição brasileira de 1988, cuja vigência se dá sob forte pressão neoliberal. Neste passo, aproveita-se fartamente do diálogo com a sociologia crítica do trabalho contemporânea, no intuito de verificar como as lutas concretas dos trabalhadores transitam entre o direito, a política e a ideologia. / The present work intends to show how law plays not only an essential function as an instrument of domination between social classes, but it is also an important element of working class political resistance. This importance exceeds the rules established in the juridical field and reaches special relevance in the way that it translates class struggles, what makes political claims turned into rights, in spite of the fact that its large measure could be neutralized according to hegemonic interests, remaining on the societys political surface, feeding the social transformation tension. This work follows a theoretical line divided in three movements. Firstly, it studies the way that ideological notion in Karl Marxs work is established and complexified, since the beginning of his works until the most mature ideas developed by him. The second movement intends to find the role played by law in the social ideological field questioning the possibilities of a juridical ideologys theory. The third and last movement, is developed with the main intention to show effectively what this thesis is all about, it also proposes an investigation on the relations between ambiguity and resistance in social rights case, mainly based on workers rights provided in 1988s Brazilian Constitution under the neoliberal pressure. In this sense the discourse of the contemporary critical sociology of work is widely used, aiming to verify how real working class fights flows through the law, politics and ideology.

<p>ABSTRACT</p><p>Many studies have been conducted on infanticide and child homicide. Researchers have approached the subject with different theoretical frameworks and explored it from different dimensions, geographical areas, and time periods. As much as the questions have varied so have the answers. This study contributes to greater clarity on the causes of infanticide. Despite numerous studies on the subject, there is still no consensus its causes. My aim has been to combine different strategies for understanding the subject. I have used material both from an aggregated level and from an individual level. The main question I sought to answer was whether social causes rather than individual factors force or trigger women to kill their newborn child? Court material also provides for an in-depth understanding of our history. The social sciences have frequently drawn sketches of the social world with big lines. These lines have been necessary and useful to point at large-scale transformations of civilisation and modernisation but, in terms of understanding real life, they can provide us with a foggy and even mistaken picture. When social scientists enter the historical archives and similar sources, we often blunder in its richness and variation. Society may, in any case, have always been complicated and the every day life for each person as well.</p><p>My findings show that infanticide signals low tolerance. In general, the women did not want to kill their own children. Moreover, my findings, like the results of other studies before mine, demonstrate that women who carry out infanticide represent normal women. To my knowledge, there isn’t one study on infanticide that claims the women were not normal. Women who committed infanticide did so out of fear: fear of losing their social bonds. They killed their children if the existence of the bonds was endangered or threatened. Often social bonds were related to their work situation as maids in farming households. If they couldn’t stay in the household after having the baby, many women had no where else to go. Their parents – poor, elderly or deceased – were unable to help. Sometimes the social bonds were threatened by other factors, often related to the child’s father. If he was already married or had a close relation with the woman’s family, their relationship could in fact, break her bonds to her own family and other relatives. Some women already had an illegitimate child. With a child out of wedlock, they had a difficult time getting work and housing. If they got pregnant again and the father to the new child refused to marry her or to support the child, she could in fact lack any resources for handling the situation.</p><p>Finally: the findings talk about honour and infanticide. It was always shameful to get a child out of wedlock. But demographic research from North of Sweden has shown that these children had almost the same chances of survival during their first year as legitimate children. Sexuality outside marriage was not respected but much discussion around honour was more related to how the women would manage with the child. In my findings, shame seems to be related to having no support. Extramarital relations were not accepted but people probably didn’t care to much about it as far as they managed on their own. Being rejected, helpless, not able to work and not able to take care of the child that was what shame was about.</p><p>Keywords: Infanticide, child homicide, illegitimacy, social bonds, shame</p>

ABSTRACT Many studies have been conducted on infanticide and child homicide. Researchers have approached the subject with different theoretical frameworks and explored it from different dimensions, geographical areas, and time periods. As much as the questions have varied so have the answers. This study contributes to greater clarity on the causes of infanticide. Despite numerous studies on the subject, there is still no consensus its causes. My aim has been to combine different strategies for understanding the subject. I have used material both from an aggregated level and from an individual level. The main question I sought to answer was whether social causes rather than individual factors force or trigger women to kill their newborn child? Court material also provides for an in-depth understanding of our history. The social sciences have frequently drawn sketches of the social world with big lines. These lines have been necessary and useful to point at large-scale transformations of civilisation and modernisation but, in terms of understanding real life, they can provide us with a foggy and even mistaken picture. When social scientists enter the historical archives and similar sources, we often blunder in its richness and variation. Society may, in any case, have always been complicated and the every day life for each person as well. My findings show that infanticide signals low tolerance. In general, the women did not want to kill their own children. Moreover, my findings, like the results of other studies before mine, demonstrate that women who carry out infanticide represent normal women. To my knowledge, there isn’t one study on infanticide that claims the women were not normal. Women who committed infanticide did so out of fear: fear of losing their social bonds. They killed their children if the existence of the bonds was endangered or threatened. Often social bonds were related to their work situation as maids in farming households. If they couldn’t stay in the household after having the baby, many women had no where else to go. Their parents – poor, elderly or deceased – were unable to help. Sometimes the social bonds were threatened by other factors, often related to the child’s father. If he was already married or had a close relation with the woman’s family, their relationship could in fact, break her bonds to her own family and other relatives. Some women already had an illegitimate child. With a child out of wedlock, they had a difficult time getting work and housing. If they got pregnant again and the father to the new child refused to marry her or to support the child, she could in fact lack any resources for handling the situation. Finally: the findings talk about honour and infanticide. It was always shameful to get a child out of wedlock. But demographic research from North of Sweden has shown that these children had almost the same chances of survival during their first year as legitimate children. Sexuality outside marriage was not respected but much discussion around honour was more related to how the women would manage with the child. In my findings, shame seems to be related to having no support. Extramarital relations were not accepted but people probably didn’t care to much about it as far as they managed on their own. Being rejected, helpless, not able to work and not able to take care of the child that was what shame was about. Keywords: Infanticide, child homicide, illegitimacy, social bonds, shame

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Law School, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 273-303).

Inaug.-Diss.--Heidelberg. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.