The model treats legal change as an external shock which catalyzes organizational decision
making processes in which in which the meanings of "the law" and "compliance," let alone the optimal
compliance strategy, may be highly uncertain while allowing affected actors to observe and learn from
others who are affected by the same laws. It thus combines the fundamental socio-legal premise that
the law is often complex and/or ambiguous such that organizations play a central role in constructing
its meaning and shaping and mediating its impact on society with more general models of policy
choice, learning, decision making and diffusion in complex environments with uncertain information
over outcomes. The realities of legal ambiguity and organizational construction of legal meaning
prompt affected organizations to make complex policy choices that shape the impact of the law.
model analyzes behavior in this setting through an analysis which begins with rational micro-
foundations and leads to predictable decision making tactics. This combination yields a theoretical
understanding, and corresponding propositions, about how affected actors will make policy to infuse
the law with meaning, and thus how legal changes instituted at political institutions, such as courts and
regulatory agencies, will or will not eventually result in societal impacts on the ground.
The overarching implication of the theory and interview evidence is that similar to other
models of policy making in complex environments with limited information, and neo-institutionalism
in sociology including its application to law, actors often will not adopt policy responses
independently. Rather, they rely on each other (and shared industry associations) as sources of
information and in many cases, policy solutions, leading to learning and legal policy diffusion.
(DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Edelman, Uggen et al. 1999; Gould 2005; Weyland 2005; Meseguer
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Though it is not restricted to court-centric legal changes (the theory is general enough to include regulatory changes and
new guidance, legislation etc.), this approach, both theoretically and empirically, falls between the conclusions of the
constrained court and the dynamic court views. (Rosenberg 1991) It charts a middle course not by advancing a more
holistic understanding of legal strategies and indirect effects like legal "mobilization" (e.g. McCann 1994) , but by
highlighting the ways that legal changes force others to make decisions which shape legal impact and then analyzing these
decisions. Courts and other sources of legal change are dynamic in that they can compel the complex decision processes
described below, but constrained in that the magnitude of their impact is, at least partly, at the mercy of such decisions
which can vary greatly from case to case.
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Convention