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England

Robes and wigs, barristers and judge, juries and witnesses, clerks and files... The English legal system is the classical adversarial system. Especially in the Crown Courts, one can learn about its main features: the ten jurors, the competing barristers, the examined and cross-examined eye-witnesses or experts, the refereeing judge etc. The hearings in court provoked some severe criticisms regarding the ritualistic and theatrical character of the legal proceeding.

The sociolegal literature is full of in-court studies, focussing on the talk in court, the meticulous rituals, the methods of cross-examination or the treatment of vulnerable witnesses. What seems neglected is the fact that court hearings rest on a whole lot of preparation, exchange of evidence and preliminary negations attained during the often extended pre-trial phase. The talk-bias common within qualitative research leads not only to the exclusion of texts and the prior stages, but also to some severe misconceptions of what is actually at stake and achieved in the course of a criminal trial.





The English case study started off the law-in-action project in 2001 with in-court-observation. In a second phase it turned towards a small law firm to learn about the solicitors’ case-preparation. In a third phase, the focus shifted towards the barrister representing the case on the basis of a brief, prepared by the instructing solicitor. During the first two phases, the research - as well as the pre-study - broadly designed the three other case studies to come (www.lancs.co.uk). It first developed tools to tackle pre-trial and trial in criminal proceedings. Furthermore it had to face the specificities of the English case study compared to the socio-logics in the other proceedings.




 





 

New activities

I currently conduct ethnographic fieldwork at the German Bundestag.

Agenda

Out now: "Thick Comparison - Reviving the Ethnographic Aspiration" , edited by Scheffer & Niewöhner, BRILL

Out soon: "Adversarial Case-Making" (Scheffer) BRILL

Out soon: "Defence Work and Procedure" (Scheffer, Kozin & Hannken-Illjes) PALGRAVE

Latest Texts

Scheffer (2010) Knowing how to sleepwalk. Placing Expert Evidence ... OnlineFirst in Science, Technology & Human Values (STHV)

Scheffer (2010) Indirect Moralizing. Early View in Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior (JTSB)

Kozin (2010) Book Note on "Roger Shuy's Fighting over words..." in Language in Society

Teaching in SS 2010

Seminar für Masterstudierende "Kulturen des Parlamentarismus" Mo. 16.00-18.00 am IfEE, HU Berlin

AG "Politische Ethnographie" [anmelden bei scheffer@law-in-action.org]

 

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