Topic summary
Critical legal studies
Critical legal studies (CLS) is a school of critical theory that developed in the United States during the 1970s. CLS views laws as devised to maintain the status quo of society and thereby codify its biases against marginalized groups.
Despite wide variations in the opinions of critical legal scholars around the world, there is a consensus regarding the key goals of critical legal studies:
- to demonstrate the ambiguity and possible preferential outcomes of supposedly impartial and rigid legal doctrines;
- to publicize historical, social, economic and psychological results of legal decisions;
- to demystify legal analysis and legal culture in order to impose transparency on legal processes so that they earn the general support of socially responsible citizens.
The abbreviations "CLS" and "Crit" are sometimes used to refer to the movement and its adherents.