Burns2009

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Burns2009
BibType ARTICLE
Key Burns2009
Author(s) Stacy Lee Burns
Title Doing justice and demonstrating fairness in small claims arbitration
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Ethnomethodology, Courtroom Interaction, Fairness
Publisher
Year 2009
Language
City
Month
Journal Human Studies
Volume 32
Number 2
Pages 109-131
URL Link
DOI 10.1007/s10746-009-9112-6
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This paper examines the intersection of technical law and common sense reasoning in small claims arbitration, a distinctive and increasingly prevalent kind of legal work. Following (Garfinkel, Ethnomethodology’s program: Working out Durkheim’s aphorism, 2002), the study explores the “reform of technical reason” and what a “just outcome” means by focusing on the arbitration of actual small claims cases and how technical-legal and non-technical/informal resources are brought into alignment to produce dispute resolution. The arbitrator elicits discussions that establish consensual and commonplace formulations of “the case,” formulations that foreshadow its disposition as technical matters of law. The research demonstrates how formal structures of equity, evenhandedness, and decisions without bias have their production in vivo, and how a just and fair course becomes a “just outcome.”

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