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Abstract
Sally Moore was initially a lawyer and later became an anthropologist. In this article she reflects on three major projects in her professional history: preparations for the second set of Nuremberg Trials, a dissertation on law in Inca Peru, and fieldwork in a time of postcolonial socialism on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa. All three situations presented strong official versions of law and its supposedly controlling effect on the social order. Contact showed that in each instance there were important unofficial counter-ideas and activities imbedded in the events of the time. The conclusion from this is that in approaching the study of any legal order, one must presume that there is concurrently a considerable, active unofficial reality and that it has its own effects and momentum and should be addressed.