A novel meditation on how courts and bureaucracies function today and how they can be made better.

We live in a highly bureaucratic society, so much so that we often don’t even see it. Although we think of bureaucracies and courtrooms as different kinds of institutions, as Robert P. Burns argues in Courts and Bureaucracies, their functions and everyday operations often blur together. Today, courts are being used to address numerous social problems that the government is unable or unwilling to tackle, and consequently, the courts frequently emphasize bureaucratic goals—such as efficiency and social control—over the adjudicatory functions that they are supposed to embody.

Drawing on social theory, philosophy, public administration, and law, Burns clarifies the role of courts in today’s bureaucratic society and considers the distinctive contributions that specifically legal procedures can bring. After exploring the competing first principles of adjudication, Burns then examines our current administrative, civil, and criminal processes and describes new and looming changes to rules and practices that should affect our thinking about the rule of law and the role of the courts.

A broad reassessment—both philosophical and practical—of how criminal, civil, and administrative practices differ from one another and what benefits each bestows, Courts and Bureaucracies offers concrete suggestions for how we can better achieve the ideals already implicit in our judicial traditions and practices.