Legal reform is about changing law to make it fairer and more effective for citizens and businesses. It can take many forms, including repealing a law, creating a new one, consolidating existing laws, or changing a law’s meaning or wording. In addition, legal reform activities can include research and writing that helps to establish an empirical basis for law changes.
In the long run, legal systems are almost infinitely plastic, and they change to fit the societies in which they are embedded – feudal society will generate a legal system that deals with institutions of feudalism; a capitalist society will generate a different law. But in the short run, random, accidental, or ‘internalist’ factors can also shape or condition the form of change that occurs.
Scholars should study these microfoundations in order to understand how and why some forms of legal reform work while others do not. In particular, scholars should explore how various social interests benefit from law and legal order – and how these interests can be mobilized to build and embed the rule of law while ensuring that it does not simply favor the rich and powerful.
Legal reform is not an easy business. It is often met with resistance from people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. In some cases, these interest groups can be strong enough to prevent or block changes from happening at all. This is a serious problem and needs to be addressed.