ISSN:0265-8240    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9930.1982.tb00283.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1982

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This article explores the practical skills that agents in the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office of Consumer Protection develop to accomplish their mandated objectives. In the situational structure and processes of discretionary decision making, we find a persistent surplus of enforcement capacity. Although the consumer protection law establishes a variety of sanctions and legal procedures to be used in enforcing the statute, agents frequently invoke infractions of other laws in the course of resolving consumer complaints. They have this flexibility only because laws, in general, are imperfectly enforced. This leaves scope in a particular situation for the invocation of a wide variety of potential violations of, for example, safety and building codes, zoning or license rules, and tax laws, all remotely if at all related to consumer protection. This article demonstrates the skill with which consumer protection officials exercise this discretion and argues that an adequate conception of the role of law ought to take account of the different ways in which law enforcement agents draw from this reservoir of un‐enforced la

ISSN:0265-8240    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9930.1982.tb00284.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1982

数据来源: WILEY

ISSN:0265-8240    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9930.1982.tb00285.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1982

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Most of the current debate on the effective provision of legal services ignores the centrality of information costs. It is argued that conventional controls do not address this issue, especially where clients are infrequent users of legal services and the services required are nonroutine. In this segment of the market for legal services there is an “adverse selection” problem that will drive down the quality of legal services. Existing methods of ensuring quality legal services to this segment of the market are unlikely to be effective. It is suggested that only legal agents with incentives and opportunities to acquire information can mitigate the adverse selection problem. The English bifurcation of lawyers into barristers and solicitors partly performs such a function and provides a model for possible innovations in the North American cont

ISSN:0265-8240    

DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9930.1982.tb00286.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1982

数据来源: WILEY