By no coincidence, as our civilization has become progressively industrialized and secularized, there has been a parallel proliferation of laws and legal complexities. A society such as ours, based upon a legal framework of "individual rights", lends itself to escalating amounts of litigation. A striking example of which is the woman who successfully sued McDonald's for not providing sufficient warning that the coffee that it sold was "very hot" [The legacy of this lawsuit can now be witnessed anytime you buy a cup of coffee from McDonald's and read the warning label "Hot coffee." We now have over 900,000 lawyers in the United States; class action lawsuits are now commonplace; involvement in litigation is inescapable for all but the homeless; and, the prisons runneth over. Throughout this course we will be striving to understand both the causes and the consequences of these and many other legal developments. The relationship of law to social change will be one of our focal concerns and the social conditions out of which laws emerge will be explored. Students will be expected as well as required to participate in class discussions of selected topics and issues.