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The role of legal intermediaries in the dispute pyramid: inequalities before the French legal system

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2021

Aude Lejeune Open the ORCID record for Aude Lejeune [Opens in a new window]  and
Alexis Spire
Aude Lejeune*
Affiliation:
CNRS, CERAPS, University of Lille, France
Alexis Spire
Affiliation:
CNRS, IRIS, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: Aude.lejeune@univ-lille.fr
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Abstract

This paper shows that social inequalities are cumulative and occur at each stage of the dispute pyramid, from the identification of a conflict through to satisfaction with its outcome. Based on a large and original survey on ordinary people's representations of and practices within the legal system in France (N = 2,660), our study finds that an individual's contact, or lack of contact, with a legal intermediary, who may be a legal professional or a non-legal professional, has a very significant impact on the decision to take a case to court. Contact with a legal intermediary also influences the individual's satisfaction with the outcome, but not in the same way for all plaintiffs: income is a more determining factor in satisfaction with the outcome in cases where the judge makes a decision than in cases where a solution is found outside the courtroom.

Keywords

Franceinequalitylegal mobilisationoccupational groupcivil justicelegal intermediaries
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , December 2021 , pp. 455 - 472
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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