■ Abstract Social movement scholars have long seemed little interested in law, and traditional legal scholars were little interested in social movement analysis by social scientists. However, recent years have seen growth of interest in the topic of law and social movements, with inquiry led by political scientists and law and society scholars. This review surveys that diverse literature, beginning with general theory regarding core concepts and then moving to a review of empirical studies organized around the multi-stage model derived from political process approaches and legal mobilization frameworks. The primary argument of the review is that law is contingent, and how it matters for social movements varies with the context and character of struggle. Most analysts agree that law generally works to support status quo conventions and hierarchical relationships, but sometimes law can be mobilized to challenge and even reconstitute the terms of institutional order.

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Studies of legal mobilization have made important contributions to social science analysis of law over the last three decades. This article briefly reviews that tradition, emphasizing its basic underlying premises and insights as well as the sources of diversity and even contestation within the legacy. It then examines in greater detail several of these important lines of inquiry within the tradition. The article also discusses the historical context of scholarly interest in legal mobilization, the micropolitics of individual legal mobilization, and group struggle and social reform. Finally, it suggests some of the most fruitful paths of future scholarship regarding litigation and legal mobilization.

Legal scholars in recent decades have devoted considerable attention to analysis regarding the utility of litigation as a resource for social reform in the United States. By and large, the tenor of this scholarship has changed in response to shifts in broader political currents. From the late 1950s to the mid-1 970s, many studies by liberal-minded intellectuals celebrated the increasing responsiveness of courts to disadvantaged minority groups and progressive causes within society. That optimism gave way during the mid-1970s and early 1980s to more critical perspectives reflecting disillusionment with litigation as a tool for advancing social transformation. Stuart Scheingold's innovative book The Politics of Rights (1974)' developed a general framework of analysis that both typified and informed much of this more critical work. In his view, optimistic assessments of judicial action on behalf of long disadvantaged and disenfranchised groups often reflect a naive faith in what he calls the "myth of rights"-that is, the myth that all victims are assured of their day in court and that judicially affirmed rights are self-implementing forces of social change removed from the constraints of political power. Studies over the next decade further explored and demonstrated many of the ideological, organizational, and financial limitations on reform litigation Scheingold identified.