Court systems can be an imposing maze. They are institutions meant to communicate the weight of public authority, but they contain all the frailties of the humans who inhabit them. Courts speak of the enduring principles of law and justice, yet they hide deep corners of discretion. Some version of “court” is found everywhere students of law look, but the global ubiquity of courts belies the need to understand the local, contingent, and contextual. For Law and Society scholars, “the court” – not just the room, but the organization that supports it – has been an essential unit of analysis. To understand its significance has required getting inside the maze to chart its work, its people, its norms, and its impact. How can a scholar comprehend how the court works “in action”?

One of the most enduring attempts to understand a court organization, Malcolm Feeley's in-depth look at a New Haven, Connecticut, court, began down the road in New York City. The groundwork was being laid for a three-city comparative study with two collaborators, the aim of which was to examine Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia. It was an exciting time – in the shadow of Watergate and political trials in the big cities. Indeed, too exciting: prosecutors and judges were hostile and sceptical to researchers, who might as well have been one of the new breed of journalists seeking to expose corruption. Trying to get access to prosecutors' files to construct a portrait of their work – even a quantitative one presenting aggregate data – went nowhere.