| Legal scholars exhibit increasingly divergent intellectual and institutional climates because new inquiry paradigms have evolved within their discipline. In order to explore the influence and impact of the diversity of paradigmatic assumptions upon individual legal scholars, I constructed a literature-based typology that divided them into three paradigms--realist, critical, and interpretive--based upon their different core ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions. Using interpretive methods, I interviewed 22 legal scholars representing each of these paradigms, three different institutions, and various demographic characteristics.;These legal scholars purported to make a conscious decision to adopt one or another of these very basic sets of views, although paradigm choice seems to be a much different process for scholars who remain within a certain paradigmatic tradition and those who adopt an alternative set of assumptions. Paradigm choice appeared to be particularly influenced by personal experiences, such as exposure to certain persuasive scholarly works or experience in law practice. Demographic and identity-based variables--gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, generation, etc.--were especially influential. Paradigm choices seemed to have the greatest impact upon legal scholars' professional lives when they took individuals outside of the mainstream of the discipline, as with scholars working with critical theory or economic models. These effects appeared to be more pronounced for older alternative paradigm scholars than for younger scholars working with critical and interpretive models.;The product of my work is a model that others might use to explore these issues of consciousness of choice, the factors that underlie paradigm choice, and the personal and professional impacts of these choices. I suggest sets of potential influences and possible impacts that other scholars might test and refine, either as they might apply to law or other disciplines, particularly those in the social sciences. I also offer a model of the potential interaction of paradigm culture with the cultures unique to disciplines and institutions and the possible impacts that these cultures jointly have upon scholars' professional careers. |
