“Charles Epp’s carefully researched, lucidly written book shines a clear light into the heated but murky debates about litigation in the United States. Making Rights Real is the best study of the social benefits that flow from American adversarial legalism, illustrating how the conjunction of litigation and the agendas of reform-oriented professionals have improved urban policing and municipal government.”

Robert A. Kagan, University of California, Berkeley

“An elegant study that combines historical, comparative, and at times even ethnographic learning, Making Rights Real reveals how fervor for professionalism and fears of lawsuits together shaped police policies and practices in the United States and in Britain as well as responses to sexual harassment and the safety of playgrounds. It will be indispensible for scholars of the law.”

William Haltom, University of Puget Sound

“Charles Epp has produced another important book, this one documenting how courts can make effective social policy. Making Rights Real will force judicial scholars to clarify their thinking about the hollow hope of judicially induced change and the limits of adversarial legalism. Its exploration of how federal trial courts have led police departments to successfully restructure themselves is a masterpiece. Scholars in several fields—political science, public policy, law, organization theory, criminal justice—will find this a must-read book.”

Malcolm M. Feeley, University of California, Berkeley