The Embedded Nature of Rural Legal Services: Sustaining Service Provision in Wales
| Author | Robert G. Lee,Alex Franklin |
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6478.2007.00389.x |
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 34, NUMBER 2, JUNE 2007
ISSN: 0263-323X, pp. 218±43
The Embedded Nature of Rural Legal Services:
Sustaining Service Provision in Wales
Alex Franklin* and Robert G. Lee*
There is a considerable amount of literature on embeddedness as part
of sociological theory of economic action. Cultural and structural
embeddedness often work together to shape the framework of economic
relations, but, in an analysis of rural solicitors, we find unevenness
between cultural and structural embeddedness. There are strong traits
of the former, through a sense of place and belonging, but much less
evidence of the latter with the structural relationships appearing
relatively weak and underdeveloped. In a discussion supported by
empirical data from a recent survey of rural legal practices in Wales, a
number of causes are identified. The paper concludes that trends
towards increasingly specialized rather than generalized legal service
provision, set alongside the increasingly differentiated nature of rural
space, suggest that the longer-term sustainability of rural legal
practices may require both greater investment at the level of structural
embeddedness alongside continuing reinvestment at the cultural level.
INTRODUCTION
This paper draws upon the findings from a recently completed study into
legal service provision in rural Wales.
1
The data generated from the
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ß2007 The Author. Journal Compilation ß2007 Cardiff University Law School. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
*ESRC Research Centre for Business Relations hips, Accountability,
Sustainability and Society (BRASS), Cardiff University, 55 Park Place.
Cardiff CF10 3AT, Wales
www.brass.cardiff.ac.uk
The research was commissioned by the Law Society of England and Wales, out of its
Cardiff office, to whose staff we are particularly grateful; we would like to thank also our
colleagues in BRASS and the Schools of Law and City and Regional Planning and the
JLS reviewers for their assistance.
1 R. Lee and A. Franklin, `Legal Services in Rural Wales: A Study of Law Firms'
(2006), available at ety.org.uk/documents/downloads/
legalservicesruralwales2006.pdf>.
programme of research provided an insight into a panoply of issues relating
to the sustainability
2
of legal service provision in rural and peripheral areas.
3
A common theme emerging from the fieldwork was the importance of rural
embeddedness for, but sometimes working against, the health of such
practices. In this paper, we illustrate how an appreciation of the role played
by rural embeddedness adds depth to an understanding of issues concerning
the value of localized delivery of rural legal services.
There is now a great deal of literature on embeddedness within socio-
logical theory of economic action
4
that looks to place economic activity
within networks of human relations that form the social structures in which
the activity operates. It is important to grasp that the embeddedness literature
focuses upon what drives this activity and offers an account of economic
exchange that adds depth to the notion of market exchange by individual
rational economic actors. It does so by adding a social dimension based on
systems of structured relationships between `culturally-constructed role-
players, operating within historically-contingent, largely-incommensurable
local regimes'.
5
On this analysis considerable economic value arises out of
the networks and their embeddedness.
Distinctions are recognized between different forms of embeddedness.
That built on the type of networks outlined above (such as relationships
through the supply chain) might be described as structural, whereas cultural
embeddedness refers more to shared understandings and goals that might
arise (for example) out of location.
6
Other strands of this literature point to
other means by which business networks might be embedded. For instance,
we might expect a profession like law to demonstrate elements of political
embeddedness,
7
as a result of common approaches
8
determined by the
219
2Bywhich we mean the longer term health, vibrancy, and viability of provision.
3 For an earlier study, see C. Harding and J. Williams, `Legal Provision in the Rural
Environment' (1994), at ciety.org.uk/documents/downloads/
legalservicesruralwales2006.pdf>.
4 Following M. Granovetter, `Economic action and social structure: The problem of
embeddedness' (1985) 91 Am. J. of Sociology 481.
5M.Suchman, `Translation Costs: A Comment on Sociology and Economics' (1995)
74 Oregon Law Rev. 257, at 272.
6 And there may be cognitive embeddedness in thought processes or political
embeddedness arising out of regulatory or legislative structures. These may have
obvious relevance to the legal profession and for transactions ± see Xueguang Zhou,
Qiang Li, Wei Zhao, He Cai, `Embeddedness and Contractual Relationships in
China's Transitional Economy' (2003) 68 Am. Sociological Rev. 75 ± but we focus on
aspects of cultural and structural embeddedness here.
7E.Michelson, `Lawyers, Political Embeddedness and Institutional Continuity in
China's Transition from Socialism' available on the social science research network
at .
8
S. Scheingold and A. Sarat, Something to Believe in: Politics, Professionalism and
Cause Lawyering (2004) describe their book as `a study of the embeddedness of cause
lawyering in various institutional frameworks composed of the organized bar, law
schools, practice settings, and the legal and political agencies of American democracy'.
ß2007 The Author. Journal Compilation ß2007 Cardiff University Law School
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