This study examines how institutions and social practices transform the meaning of Family and Medical Leave Act rights to recreate power and inequality systems.

1. Institutions, inequality, and the mobilization of rights; 2. The social institution of work; 3. Institutional inequality and legal reform; 4. Mobilizing the FMLA in the workplace: rights, institutions, and social meaning; 5. Mobilizing rights in the courts: the paradox of losing by winning; 6. Conclusion.

Catherine R. Albiston is Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. She is active in the American Sociological Association and the Law and Society Association, serving in several capacities, including Trustee for the Law and Society Association. Her research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the American Bar Foundation, and she has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and law reviews, including Law and Society Review and Annual Review of Law and Social Sciences.