The French, American, and English legal professions are compared in terms of four common goals: to control admission and training, to protect their jurisdiction, to regulate the behavior of their members, and to enhance their cooperative status. The varying ways in which revolutionary attacks affected their capacity to realize these goals is traced. It is argued that these attacks, and the way lawyers in these societies recovered from them, largely explain the differences between the three professions in the modem world.

Civil suits for damage awards against police officers alleged to have engaged in illegal searches have long been suggested as an alternative to the exclusionary rule as a remedy for police misconduct. A review of empirical literature on the incidence and outcomes of such suits suggests that defendant officers often prevail and that the awards do not seem large enough to produce the punishment and deterrence effect often claimed by proponents of the tort remedy. Using an experimental technique involving simulated trials and adults called for jury service as subjects, we examine the effects of two procedural aspects of such suits on juror awards. The extent of municipal liability and the substitution of the U.S. government as plaintiff do not appear to affect the incidence or size of compensatory or punitive damage awards. Denying jurors information about the outcome of the search does appear likely to increase damage awards. The article both explores factors affecting juror decision-making in these cases and illustrates the utility and limitations of the experimental method for testing suggested policy innovations.

The courts, with some important qualifications, have been reluctant to uphold tax assessments based on a review of only a sample of all transactions. In this article we argue that audit assessments based on appropriately drawn and analyzed statistical samples do not suffer from the defects that the courts have correctly concluded mar assessments based on nonstatistical samples. We do, however, argue that because of the inherent imprecision of assessments based on a less-than-complete review of all records, the calculation of the assessment should include a factor to take into account the risk that the taxpayer has been overassessed. We suggest an assessment rule that does just this and also recommend guidelines for the use of statistical sampling in tax audits.