1 James A. Gardner, Legal Imperialism: American Lawyers and Foreign Aid in Latin America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980).Google Scholar

2 For convenience this review will use the term North American as synonymous with United States.Google Scholar

3 For a discussion of how dependency theory may contribute to comparative sociology of law see Snyder, Francis G., Law and Development in the Light of Dependency Theory, 14 Law & Soc'y Rev. 723 (1980).Google Scholar

4 Gardner's book is the most complete scholarly work on the law and development movement. Other assessments of the movement are: Trubek, David M., Toward a Social Theory of Law: An Essay on the Study of Law and Development, 82 Yale L.J. 1 (1972); Trubek, David M. & Galanter, Mare, Scholars in Self-Estrangement: Some Reflections on the Crisis in Law and Development Studies in the United States, 1974 Wis. L. Rev. 1062; Merryman, John Henry, Comparative Law and Social Change: On the Origins, Style, Decline, and Revival of the Law and Development Movement, 25 Am. J. Comp. L. 457 (1977); and Burg, Elliot M., Law and Development: A Review of the Literature and a Critique of “Scholars in Self-Estrangement,” 25 Am. J. Comp. L. 492 (1977).Google Scholar

5 John Howard, a former Ford staff member, was president of the ILC. Ford made an initial grant of $3,000,000 in 1966 and supplemental grants of $2,280,000 in 1968, $1,700,000 in 1973, and $650,000 in 1975 (p. 48 at note 12; p. 303 n. 12).Google Scholar

6 See Trubek, supra note 4.Google Scholar

7 AID made a $1,000,000 grant to Yale Law School to establish the Law and Modernization Program and a $750,000 grant to Stanford Law School for a comparative research project on legal systems in Latin America (p. 225). Gardner quotes one of his own internal Ford strategy memoranda as follows:. And we are tempering our development assistance posture, which posits greater American know-how than probably should be the case in this area, by adopting a more questioning, inquiring posture … we have moved from an effort to reform legal education to an effort to better understand relationships between law and social change, and an effort to better apply the legal system to law-related human problems. [P. 350 n.38 (ellipsis in original)].Google Scholar

8 Trubek & Galanter, supra note 4, at 1085 n.71, referring to an initial draft of Gardner's critical history.Google Scholar

9 The reports of the two committees provide a general picture of the shift from legal education reform programs to research on law and social change. See International Legal Center, Committee on Legal Education in the Developing Countries, Legal Education in a Changing World (New York: International Legal Center, 1975); id., Research Advisory Committee on Law and Development, Law and Development: The Future of Law and Development Research (New York: International Legal Center, 1974).Google Scholar

10 Gardner primarily relies on Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Law in Modern Society: Toward a Criticism of Social Theory (New York: Free Press, 1976); Trubek, supra note 4; Trubek & Galanter, supra note 4.Google Scholar

11 See Rosenn, Keith S., The Jeito: Brazil's Institutional Bypass of the Formal Legal System and Its Development Implications, 19 Am. J. Comp. L. 514 (1971).Google Scholar

12 Gardner states that a principal motivation for Brazilian lawyers was improving their competitive position in the employment market (p. 72). Two of the key members of the Chilean institute for legal education reform made similar arguments. See Andres Cuneo & Gonzalo Figueroa, Las Reformas Operadas en la Ensenanza in Chile, Doc. No. 15 of the Conference on Legal Education and Development (1971). For similar views on the profession's situation in Colombia see Rey, M. Bentancourt, Documento Sobre Reforma a los Estudios de Derecho en el Pais, 37 Revista Juridica 107 (1970); A. Naranjo Villegas, Necisidad de Reforma de Facultades de Derecho, separada de la Revista Juridica, No. 33 (1966).Google Scholar

13 See Olavo Brasil de Lima Junior, Lucia M. Gomez Klein, & Antonio Soares Martins, O advogado eo estado no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro Edições, dados research report, 1970) (cited by Gardner, p. 92 at note 80, p. 319 n.63); Steven Lowenstein, Lawyers, Legal Education, and Development: An Examination of the Process of Reform in Chile 52–53 (New York: International Legal Center, 1970); Dennis O. Lynch, Legal Roles in Colombia 76 (New York: International Center for Law in Development, 1981).Google Scholar

14 Gardner cites a 1977 draft manuscript of the study. There were no changes in the published book that would influence his conclusions. Citations in this review are to the published book, Lynch, supra note 13.Google Scholar

15 Id. at 39–42.Google Scholar

16 Id. at 61 n.35.Google Scholar

17 Id. at 40.Google Scholar

18 Id. at 26–27.Google Scholar

19 Lowenstein, supra note 13, at 52–53.Google Scholar

20 Lynch, supra note 13, at 57–59.Google Scholar

21 A good example of the natural law link to constitutional doctrine is the quote from a speech by Brazilian lawyer Seabra Fagundes, which Gardner uses as an example of Brazilian liberal constitutionalism:. [T]o speak of the constitution is to speak of limitation of power, for this is the basic end of constitutional instruments; and to speak of limitation of power is to speak of preserving individual rights, for when one limits power it is precisely to safeguard these rights against abuse of force; and to speak of preserving individual rights is to speak of respect of the human person. [P. 110].Google Scholar

22 Gardner recognizes the element of positivism in Latin American jurisprudence when he initially describes Latin American formalism and quotes (p. 54) from John Henry Merryman, The Civil Law Tradition: An Introduction to the Legal Systems of Western Europe and Latin America 23 (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press, 1969):. Thus state positivism, as expressed in the dogma of the absolute external and internal sovereignty of the State, led to a State monopoly on lawmaking. Revolutionary emphasis on the strict separation of powers demanded that only specifically designated organs of the State be entitled to make law.Google Scholar

23 Merryman, supra note 22, at 140–48. See also Rosenn, Keith S., Judicial Review in Latin America, 35 Ohio St. L.J. 785 (1974).Google Scholar

24 For a detailed description of such a constitutional reform effort in Colombia, see J. Vidal Perdomo, Historia de la Reforma Constitucional de 1968 y sus Alcances Juridicos (Bogota: Biblioteca Juridica Contemporánea, Externado de Colombia, 1970).Google Scholar

25 Gardner refers (p. 14) to the following quote from Llewellyn, K. N., The Crafts of Law Re-valued, 15 Rocky Mtn. L. Rev. 1, 3 (1942), as the common denominator of the law and development movement:. [T]he essence of our craftsmanship lies in skills, and wisdoms; in practical, effective, persuasive, inventive skills for getting things done, any kind of thing in any field; in wisdom and judgment in selecting the things to get done; in skills for moving men into desired action, any kind of man, in any field. We are the trouble shooters [emphasis added by Gardner).Google Scholar

26 See Llewellyn, Karl N., A Realistic Jurisprudence—The Next Step, 30 Colum. L. Rev. 431 (1930); id., One “Realist's” View of Natural Law for Judges, 15 Notre Dame Law. 3 (1939); K. N. Llewellyn & E. Adamson Hoebel, The Cheyenne Way: Conflict and Case Law in Primitive Jurisprudence (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1941). For a thoughtful analysis of Llewellyn's jurisprudence see Casebeer, Kenneth M., Escape from Liberalism: Fact and Value in Karl Llewellyn, 1977 Duke L.J. 671.Google Scholar

27 For a critical assessment of the law and development literature, which concludes that a substantial volume of scholarship from the movement's outset embodied a pragmatic or anthropological concept of law, see Burg, supra note 4, at 512–30; see also Merryman, supra note 4.Google Scholar

28 As prominent examples of a change in the direction of law and development literature Gardner cites among others: Friedman, Lawrence M., On Legal Development, 24 Rutgers L. Rev. 11 (1969); Duncan Kennedy, The Role of Private Law in Economic Change: An Integration of Market-oriented Legal and Economic Theory, unpublished draft essay (1971); Trubek, David M., Max Weber on Law and the Rise of Capitalism, 1972 Wis. L. Rev. 720; Trubek & Galanter, supra note 4; Abel, Richard L., A Comparative Theory of Dispute Institutions in Society, 8 Law & Soc'y Rev. 217 (1974); Unger, supra note 10.Google Scholar

29 He prepared the initial draft of his study while on leave from Ford as a visiting scholar at Harvard in the early 1970s, and the draft was circulated informally in 1974. Trubek & Galanter, supra note 4, at 1085 n.71.Google Scholar

30 Gardner lists more than 40 prominent American lawyers involved with legal assistance programs (pp. 19–20).Google Scholar

31 This observation is based on the reviewer's contact with North American law professors while working as a Ford staff member responsible for the law program in Colombia. The law schools are Arizona, Boston College, Duke, Harvard, Illinois, Miami, Michigan, North Carolina, Stanford, Texas, Wisconsin, and Yale.Google Scholar

32 See Trubek & Galanter, supra note 4.Google Scholar

33 See, e.g., Abel, supra note 28, setting forth a theoretical model for studying dispute resolution; Trubek, supra note 28, encouraging legal scholars to explore social theory for ideas on how to model the relationship between law and different forms of economic and political organization; Galanter, Marc, Why the “Haves” Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change, 9 Law & Soc'y Rev. 95 (1974), for its impact on literature concerned with the structure of legal systems and the distribution of access to law; Unger, supra note 10, as an example of using law to explore the problems of social theory.Google Scholar

34 See, e.g., Abel, Richard L., Socializing the Legal Profession: Can Redistributing Lawyers' Services Achieve Social Justice? 1 Law & Pol'y Q. 5 (1979); David M. Trubek, Complexity and Contradiction in the Legal Order: Balbus and the Challenge of Critical Social Thought About Law (Review Essay of Balbus, Isaac D., The Dialectics of Legal Repression: Black Rebels Before the American Criminal Courts), 11 Law & Soc'y Rev. 529 (1977); Unger, supra note 10.Google Scholar