Critical legal studies

Critical legal theory

CLT says that law isn’t neutral or based only on logic. Instead, law is shaped by ideology. Because of this, legal decisions can be uncertain since they’re influenced by factors outside the written law, not just strict legal reasoning.

CLT scholars study how law helps maintain existing power structures. They argue that law works to support those in power while making people believe they are simply following the “rule of law,” not the rule of powerful individuals.

CLT also criticizes how law is taught. They believe law schools train students to depend on institutions and accept hierarchical roles. Students are taught to “fit in” and become team players, reinforced through the pressures of passing the bar exam and getting accredited.

What does CLT overlap with?

Rule skepticism= “You can’t always trust the rules.” (rule-skepticism)

“You can’t always trust the facts people use.” (fact-skepticism)

Old-school lawyers said: “We follow rules like a math formula.” CLS says this is not true.

What Critical Legal Theorists believe

• Law and politics are NOT separate.
  It’s like saying the rules in school are made by the same people who decide what games we play.

• People in power make the rules.
  So the rules often help them stay in power.

• Judges don’t just follow rules.
  They choose the result they want, then explain it using legal words.

What they say the law does

• The law makes it look like everyone is treated fairly. (legitimation by domination by power elites)

• But really, the people in charge still control things.

• We are told it’s “rule of law, not rule of someone,”
  but CLS says powerful people are still running the show — just behind the curtain.

Reification 

It’s like when kids follow a school rule just because it’s a rule, even if it doesn’t make sense —
and they keep following it every day until it feels like the rule is a real, unchangeable thing.
They help keep the rule alive without knowing it.

Hegemony

when people in power stay in power not by force, but because the rest of society accepts their leadership, values, and rules as “normal” or “common sense.”

It’s not about physical control — it’s about shaping beliefs so that people voluntarily go along with a system, even if it benefits the powerful more than everyone else.

Deconstruction

when scholars critically examine the uninstalled assumptions within case law

reconstruction

-2nd step

-when scholars apply other theories to re-examine the law and to make it more just

CLS and law school

-law students are taught to depend on established institutions

and are taught not to question the rules

accreditation and bar exam are conformity to the hierarchy