This chapter addresses the role of sociological approaches in private law theory. Although the intellectual history of sociology is closely interwoven with that of modern jurisprudence, its impact on today’s debates in private law scholarship is rather limited. This holds true especially for the fields of commercial and corporate law, which are largely dominated by law and economics approaches. In this context, the chapter aims to identify those parts of the socio-legal tradition that can make a specific contribution to contemporary discussions. Box 2.1 exemplifies this contribution with a case that is deliberately taken from the field of commercial, more precisely banking, law.