Similarly, Lawrence Friedman has identified several dysfunctions of law: legal actions may be used to 
harass individuals or to gain revenge rather than redress a legal wrong; the law may reflect biases and 
prejudices or reflect the interest of powerful economic interests; the law may be used by totalitarian regimes 
as an instrument of repression; the law can be too rigid because it is based on a clear set of rules that don’t 
always fit neatly (for example, Friedman notes that the  rules of self-defense do not apply in situations in 
which battered women use force to repel consistent abuse because of the law’s requirement that the threat 
be immediate); the law may be slow to change because of its reliance on precedent (he also notes that judges 
are also concerned about maintaining respect for the law and hesitate to introduce change that society is not 
ready to accept); that the law denies equal access to justice because of inability to pay for legal services; that 
courts are reluctant to second-guess the decisions of political decision-makers, particularly in times of war 
and crisis; that reliance on law and courts can discourage democratic political activism because Individuals 
and groups, when they look to courts to decide issues, divert energy from lobbying the legislature and from 
building political coalitions for elections; and finally, that law may impede social change because it may limit 
the ability of individuals to use the law to vindicate their rights and liberties. 
4 
 
4. Lippman, M. R. (2015). Law and society (pp. 25). Thousand Oaks, CA : SAGE Publications. 
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