The Work of Lauren B. Edelman

Abstract

This chapter reviews and evaluates the compelling work of the eminent sociolegal scholar Lauren B. Edelman, offering a selective analysis of key concepts that correspond and intersect with the Law & Management perspective. It assesses Edelman’s early formative work on law, organizations, and governance before considering her research into legal ambiguity and organizational symbolism. The focus then moves to Edelman’s exposure of judicial deference to corporate and organizational interests. Her celebrated hypothesis of legal endogeneity, which demonstrates how law becomes shaped by the social fields it seeks to regulate, particularly through organizational mediation and judicial deference to corporate compliance structures, is defined and evaluated in detail within two sections which explore conceptual development, application, and maturity. The analysis highlights how her interdisciplinary approach bridges law and organizational sociology to expose how corporations can professionalize, managerialize, and dominate aspects of the legal landscape. The chapter concludes by examining Edelman’s lasting influence on sociolegal scholarship and the continuing relevance of her theoretical frameworks for understanding contemporary organizational compliance and legal transformation across multiple regulatory domains.