Discussion of the distribution and delivery of legal services usually turns on the problem of civil justice for the poor. Our attention is so dominated by the problems of distributive justice for the poor that we ignore the more general problem of civil justice for the public.

In Western society the primary function of law has been the protection and regulation of property. Indeed, the earliest liberal conceptions of public life are founded on the premise that men gave up an utterly private life in order to enjoy the utilities provided by public protection for their persons and, even more important, the fruits of their labors—in Locke's (1689: Art. 123) phrase, "their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name property." In the earliest liberal tradition, the holding of property is the foundation for participation in public life; accordingly, the principal end of the civil law is the definition and protection of property rights.

For a half century or more it has been understood that the services of attorneys are not equally available to all who need them and a body of research has gradually been assembled which casts light on a number of factors relevant to how clients find attorneys and pay for their services. Among issues which have been probed are: the nature and extent of the public's need for legal services, the reasons for the failure of the poor to refer their problems to attorneys, the effect of OEO and legal aid offices on availability of legal services and the need for improved legal services for the middle class (Christensen, 1970). With few exceptions, however, the role of individual practicing attorneys in making legal services more widely available by occasionally working for a reduced fee, or for no fee at all, has never been systematically studied.

The present Spanish regime is not a democratic one if by democracy we mean a political situation which:

Rather, it has been characterized as authoritarian, using that term to describe a distinct genus besides democracy and totalitarianism. Generally, political democracy and judicial independence tend to be associated, the former being considered a necessary though not sufficient precondition for the latter. Thus, one might be inclined to expect contemporary Spain to display a strongly politicized and ideologically uniform judiciary. The first section of this paper will suggest, however, that this is far from being the case: recent survey data from a national sample of Spanish judges testify to the existence of a remark-able degree of ideological diversity among the members of the Spanish judiciary. Such a pattern is explained in the second section of the paper as the correlate of the considerable degree of independence from the political system which the Spanish judges seem to enjoy with respect to their selection, training, promotions and everyday activities.

During the first half of this century, most research on deterrence suggested that punishment had little effect on behavior. These findings tended to confirm the ideological position of most sociologists, who generally assumed that criminal behavior was not and probably could not be controlled by legal sanctions. However, recent developments indicate that this assumption is in error. First, laboratory research (e.g., Banduara, 1969:292-353; Bandua and Walters, 1963) has demonstrated that under certain conditions, punishment can effectively and efficiently control behavior, and that such control can be obtained through vicarious reinforcement. Second, and more important, research since 1960 by both economists and sociologists, generally more sophisticated than earlier work, suggests that legal sanctions often play a significant role in preventing criminal behavior. (See, for example, Chambliss, 1966; Gibbs, 1968; Tittle, 1969; Logan, 1972; Chiricos and Waldo, 1970; Tittle and Rowe, 1974; 1973; Jensen, 1969; Waldo and Chiricos, 1972; Phillips and Votey, 1972; Phillips, 1973). Thus the issue for future research is no longer whether legal sanctions ever deter criminal behavior, but the specification of the conditions under which they have such an effect. This paper seeks to develop some hypotheses to guide future research on these conditions.

The demise of the “upper court myth” (see Frank, 1969: 222-24) and the resultant realization of the importance of the “trial” court has spurred research into the dispositional processes of criminal courts. In the forefront of the results yielded by these efforts is a model of case disposition very different from the familiar Perry Mason courtroom interaction, a model predicated on negotiated dispositions rather than adversary combat, in short, a plea bargaining model.

Plea bargaining can be defined as the process by which the defendant relinquishes his right to go to trial in exchange for a reduction in charge and/or sentence. The pervasiveness of plea bargaining is suggested by the fact that roughly only 10% of all criminal cases go to trial.