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Legal reform aims to make the law more responsive to current conditions, more useful to lawyers and other stakeholders, and more effective at promoting social justice. But while legal reform is important, it is a complex process. In the long run, a legal system can change in almost any way imaginable, but the process is often ragged and unpredictable. In the short run, a variety of internal factors can shape and limit legal reform in many ways.
It is also essential to consider the role of external forces in a legal reform context, and to distinguish between immediate changes on the one hand, and more indirect effects on society as a whole. It is all too common to encounter legal reform goals that clash with each other: for instance, a market-oriented approach aimed at facilitating investment may conflict with democratic reform goals that aim to create an environment that promotes democracy and markets (Haltom and McCann 2004).
Another key factor is how the results of legal reform are communicated. Scandals, incidents and ‘horror stories’ can have powerful, yet insufficiently studied, effects on sociolegal change (Friedman 2004). Similarly, the media is a powerful communication tool that has the potential to amplify the impact of legal change, and also to communicate it in selective or biased ways.