This course has three purposes. First, it explores the role of law, courts, judges, and lawyers in the American polity. Thus, we shall investigate the criminal and civil justice system, judicial power and politics, tort reform, and constitutional interpretation, among other topics. The second purpose is to investigate the entanglement of these institutions and practices with the pressing problem of social inequality within American communities. The final section of the course shifts our focus from state law and local communities to the American national community. Here we shall investigate the role of administrative constitutionalism in articulating and shaping national public policy. By pursuing all three lines of inquiry, the course raises theoretical questions about the proper role of the American legal system within democratic constitutional government, the nature of the rule of law, and social justice – at the same time, the course directs our attention to whether local, state, and national courts, including the judges, lawyers, and officials that staff these courts, can and do live up to the aspirations of the American legal order.