Rights in American society present a paradox-critics increasingly assert that proliferation of rights is undermining Americans' sense of community, yet scholars continue to document Americans' reluctance to assert formal legal rights. We explore the meaning of rights in American society by describing the intersection between the evolving civil rights of a previously excluded minority, culminating in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the personal histories of two individuals who might potentially invoke or benefit from such rights. Tracing the life stories of "Sara Lane" and 'Jill Golding" from childhood through adolescence to adulthood and employment, we relate the everyday relevance or irrelevance of law to important elements of the reconstructed pastthe development of self-concept and of one's place in relation to the social mainstream. The article, which is part of a larger project involving a more broadly based interview sample of adults with disabilities, analyzes life stories to critique familiar assumptions about the perceived conflict between rights and social relationships and about the mobilization of law. It also offers an innovative approach to the study of law and legal consciousness by involving Sara Lane and Jill Golding in the analysis of successive drafts and by including their reactions to what the authors have written. Our thanks, first and most importantly, to the two individuals whose stories are discussed at length in this article, "Sara Lane" and "Jill Golding," for generously sharing their thoughts and experiences with us and with those who may read this article. We are deeply grateful for their time, patience, and commitment to this project. Our thanks, too, to an outstanding group of students who have assisted us with this project since its inception:

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This chapter discusses the concept of class in an important subfield, the sociology of law. Class, a pivotal institution of society, was central to the earliest studies of legal institutions and of law and inequality in particular. More recently, class has played a less important role. This chapter argues for the continuing importance of class and provides examples of its potential use in contemporary sociolegal research. The first part reviews early work that employed class and instrumental models of the state. Grounded, anti-formal models of law provided a contrasting view. Following wider trends in the discipline, sociology of law turned from structural models to theories oflaw as an ideology, and most recently, as reviewed in the second part, to law as an element of consciousness and experience. While acknowledging the value of contemporary research that documents a deeply textured, paradoxical, and nuanced analysis of the role oflaw in society, the third part argues for theorizing the link between experience and context, including the role of social class, and presents a research agenda for a sociology oflaw, where therelationship between law and class is considered both as institution and experience. "The plain fact is that in a new stage of capitalism, class divides as ruthlessly as it did in the age of the Robber Barons."

Buffalo School of Law. He has conducted fieldwork-based research on the role of law in the lives of ordinary people in the United States and in Southeast Asia and has studied disability rights issues involving children and their families as well as adults. Other work involves research on injuries and communities in America and Thailand. His various books and articles include Rights of Inclusion: Law and Identity in the Life Stories of Americans with Disabilities (University of Chicago 2003) (with Frank Munger). Engel is a past president of the Law & Society Association.

Two events in the past twelve months have made me think about the law and society field and activism—two events and many years of telling myself that our field is about more than research.