Legal opportunity structure or legal opportunity is a concept found in the study of law and social movements.
[1] Legal opportunities are made up of: access to the courts, which may be affected in particular by the law on standing or locus standi, and costs rules; 'legal stock' or the set of available precedents on which to hang a case;[2] and judicial receptiveness.
Legal opportunity has been used as an independent variable to help to explain strategy choice by social movement organisations (SMOs) - e.g. why SMOS adopt litigation rather than protest or political lobbying as a strategy.
Other variables or explanatory frameworks it is commonly found alongside include framing,[3] resource mobilization and grievance.
[4] Legal opportunity theory has been applied to a wide range of policy areas which have seen legal mobilization by social movements, including the environmental,[1][5] animal rights,[1] women's,[1] LGBT,[1][2][6] labor,[6] civil rights,[7] human rights,[8] and disability movements.