If there is any piece of work discussed in this volume that most unquestionably can be called a “classic,” this is it. Necessary to any suggestion of a “canon” of Law and Society is a judgment about what constitutes good or important scholarship. Certainly, one quality of significant sociolegal work is that it illuminates the world as it is in practice, not as lawyers and legal scholars assert it to be. The areas of law most frequently relegated to the dry covers of legal treatises – contracts, bankruptcy, tax, estates, and so on – thus have the best potential to reveal new sides when subjected to the sunlight of critical inquiry. What we learn from such studies can be quite dramatic in terms of the sheer gap between theory and practice, and the discovery of that gap speaks to the power of empirical study of law as a whole.

Stewart Macaulay's landmark article, “Non-Contractual Relations in Business: A Preliminary Study,” is one such eye-opening exercise in empirical exploration. Contrary to the assumptions of the legal creed, he found a world in which law was not central – where custom and other noncontractual social practices provide order. Undoubtedly the freshness of his discoveries were aided by the state of the field – indeed, the Law and Society Association was not formed until 1964 – and subsequent research has noted many changes in the use of law by businesses in the late twentieth century. The article nevertheless remains much read and cited. Today, Macaulay's position vis-à-vis methodology and empirical research is not uncommon.