Une perspective wébérienne sur l'influence du droit dans le contexte du divorce selon les pratiques des avocats et des médiateurs

In this sociology of law thesis, we study the influence of State generated law on legal actors. Our general hypothesis is that the State's legal intermediaries significantly contribute to shape legal actors' "relationship to law". This implies that they would have an impact on the construction of the law's influential relationship with these social actors and, therefore, an undeniable effect on law's "empirical legitimacy". Through their professional practice legal intermediaries should have a noticeable- yet non exclusive impact on the concrete forms of legal actors' "relationship to law". In studying this phenomena, we make an empirical comparison between the links which exist between legal actors' different "relationships to law" and a Law characterized by a very different legal rationality whether it be "carried" by a lawyer or mediator. These two groups of professionals are the legal intermediaries at the center of our study, which is neither general nor global, but specific to divorce cases, geographically located in Montreal, and historically situated in the early 1990's. This period is interesting to conduct a study on the impact of the law on legal actors since it constitutes a unique moment in the history of Montreal. That is when the professional practices of lawyers and mediators were the furthest apart, which sets the table for comparative work which should prove enlightening. In the early 1990's, after operating for close to ten years, Montreal’s Service de médiation à la famille had succeeded in establishing a solid professional practice. Furthermore, lawyers' professional practice in relation to divorce cases was already "modern", but remained relatively uninfluenced by family mediation. Since the "relationship to law" of those who have consulted these legal intermediaries in relation to their divorce proceedings is at the heart of our study, we interviewed said individuals. The analysis of these interviews will allow us to understand our subjects' "relationship to law". Our research is based upon the scientific perspective of Max Weber's sociology. Such an ambitious project demanded that we not confine ourselves to popular concepts. Therefore, an important part of this thesis is dedicated to presenting a substantial part of weberian sociology. This served as the foundation on which we built our investigative strategy and our ideal-typical analytical instruments. Not only is there no general systems theory made up of laws aimed at explaining social relationships in weberian sociology, but there is no prefabricated "ready-to-wear" analytical framework model which could be applied in order to perform empirical studies, whether it be in law or any other area of human activity. However, weberian sociology gives us many conceptual references which allow us to organize empirical research without limiting the number of subjects or the investigator’s imagination if the researcher wishes to understand social action through its interpretation, the re by, explaining its causality through its development and its effects. Such is the knowledge project which Weber calls "sociology". He doesn't view this knowledge project in a general and global manner, but rather as being particular to each field of work, place, period, spheres of values, etc. In this thesis, we propose an analytical framework which can help identify and further study many questions relating to Law and its influence, without limiting it to a system of rules as in positive law. This analytical framework aims at presenting law as a kind of social relationship which can be sociologically understood if you consider the legal representations put forth by the different categories of social actors. That is the first, but not the only, condition that must be met in order to comply with the demands of empirical knowledge of law since "empirical law" cannot be found in positive law rules. It can be found where it is "carried" by human beings, particularly those with greater social influence. We hope that this study, which is influenced by Max Weber's immense contribution to the field of sociology, adds to the sociological comprehension of one aspect of the contemporary State's "empirical law".

Keyphrases: Max Weber, Divorce, Sociology of law, Max Weber, Legal actors' relationship to law, Divorce, Lawyer, Mediator, Empirical legitimacy of law