It is no secret that the American legal system differs from other developed Western countries in its practices and laws. This variant, called “adversarial legalism” by Professor Robert Kagan in his book Adversarial Legalism, has two main characteristics: formal legal contestation and litigant activism. In civil and criminal law, jury trials and a specific legal culture exemplify these traits. Although adversarial legalism responds well to American desires for justice and protection from harm while respecting the societal fear of too powerful a government, it leads to extremely costly litigation and immense legal uncertainty. To reconcile the American vision of justice and the undesirable results of formal protest and litigant activism, the legal system has gone so far as to reform large parts of the system, including bureaucratic regulations and the process of negotiating justice. advocacy. However, as Kagan states, rather than reducing the cost or uncertainty of the legal process, these procedural changes have simply led to an increase in litigation and, therefore, an increase in adversarial legalism in criminal and civil law. The formal legal challenge greatly emphasizes the importance of procedures, rules and the jury system. Phoebe Ellsworth, in The Social Organization of Law, highlights a number of these procedures and rules. For example, jurors cannot make independent inquiries during the trial, unanimity is required of jurors, and jurors cannot review how previous juries may have decided similar cases because juries do not allow written documents. There are even rules in the evidence collection system, such as those defining the legal limits of searches and seizures, which...... middle of paper ...... they often have the feeling like you have no choice but to plead guilty. and accept the deal. Prosecutors can exploit the consequences produced by adversarial legalism in a way that allows them to handle a high volume of cases and obtain a large number of guilty pleas. Systematic changes to civil and criminal law in an attempt to avoid the negative consequences of adversarial legalism only make the system less useful to citizens. Although adversarial legalism satisfies the American desire for comprehensive protection through a deliberately fragmented government, the effects on the individual are far-reaching. highly undesirable. The cost and unreliability associated with litigant activism and formal protest are highly likely to discourage citizens from moving forward with litigation and criminal prosecution. Unfortunately, these are the consequences of contradictory legalism in America..