Legal awareness

Legal awareness, also known as legal consciousness, is the empowerment of individuals regarding issues involving the law. Legal awareness helps to promote consciousness of legal culture, participation in the formation of laws and the rule of law.

Legal consciousness is defined by Ewick and Silbey as the process by which people make sense of their experiences by relying on legal categories and concepts. People do this even when they are not familiar with the details and minutia of law or the legal system. They explain that there are cultural schemas provided by law that people use to make sense of their experiences. They refer to this as legality. The concept of legality includes "the meanings, sources, authority and cultural practices that are commonly recognized as legal, regardless of who employs them or for what ends." These meanings and sources and different ways of knowing and understanding enable people to make sense of what happens to them and what that might mean in terms of their rights and options. This process of understanding legal experiences occurs within a larger ecosystem in which there are disputes over meaning and values. Seron and Munger explain that ""in addition, class may affect legal consciousness: Law may mean different things depending on an individual's location in the various hierarchies of status, prestige, and knowledge associated with membership in a social class.