 Careers
of legal arguments
Where do the stories, points or arguments derive from that are presented in court?
What does it take to make a story work in court? What kind of work is invested
before the ensemble appoints a story to become part of the case? How are points
checked, equipped and tried before they can be used in public? What qualifies
an idea to become a file note or to be mentioned in the brief for Counsel? Such
careers link pre-trial and trial.
The career of legal arguments can be acquired through close file-analysis: one
shall, firstly, note every single manifestation along the case’s overall
time-line. These appearances, secondly, can be linked to its addressees, the
level of publication, the functions attached to it, etc. The diagram may display this idea of social promotion.
How is the case developed out of early ideas? Tracing back the career path, one finds further enquiries,
meticulous drafting, or efforts to recruite (more) witnesses? Next to these investments,
one can observe the increase/decline of acknowledgement that goes along
with the circulation of the statement (within the firm, between solicitor
and barrister, among prosecution and defence,
in the procedural public). The notion of the (individual/normal) career provides the empirical foundations to compare legal proceedings.
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 New activities
Special Issue on "Law and Biography" in BIOS
Call for Abstracts/French-German Conference on “Enfermement/Freiheitsentzug”
Latest Texts/Books
My ethnography on the English Crown Court procedure by BRILL
Review
Our comparative ethnography of criminal defence work in different procedural
regimes by PALGRAVE
Teaching in SS 2011
Scheffer: „Einführung in die Institutionelle Ethnographie“ Kurs in Moodle
Scheffer: „Was tun Verfahren? Eine sozialwissenschaftliche Debatte“ Kurs in Moodle
Scheffer: „Arbeitskreis politische Ethnographie“ Termine in Moodle
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THE CASE STUDIES
Careers of argument
