It is no secret that the American legal system is distinct from that of other developed Western nations in its practices and laws. This variation, called “adversarial legalism” by Professor Robert Kagan in his book Adversarial Legalism, has two salient characteristics: formal legal contestation and litigant activism. In civil and criminal law, jury trials and a specific legal culture exemplify these traits. While adversarial legalism responds well to American desires for justice and protection from harm while at the same time respecting the social fear of a government with too much power, it leads to extremely costly litigation and immense legal uncertainty. To reconcile the American vision of justice and the undesirable outcomes of formal contestation and stakeholder activism, the legal system has gone so far as to reform large parts of the system, including bureaucratic rules and the plea bargaining process. 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. formal legal challenge, greatly emphasizes the importance of procedures, rules and the jury system. Phoebe Ellsworth, in The Social Organization of Law, highlights some of these procedures and rules. For example, jurors cannot conduct independent investigations during the trial, juror unanimity is required, and jurors cannot verify how previous juries may have decided similar cases because juries do not leave written records. There are also rules in the evidence-gathering system, such as those that define the legal limits of search and seizure, that ... middle of paper ... people feel they have no choice but to plead guilty. and accept the agreement. Prosecutors can exploit the consequences produced by adversarial legalism in a way that allows them to process 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 outcomes of adversarial legalism only make the system less useful to citizens. While adversarial legalism satisfies the American desire for complete protection from a purposely fragmented government, the effects on the individual are highly undesirable. The cost and unreliability associated with stakeholder activism and formal challenge have the strong potential to discourage citizens from pursuing litigation and prosecution. Unfortunately, these are the consequences of adversarial legalism in America.