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This article is an argument for the integration of the sociological tools of institutional theory with the critical legal studies tradition as a way of reinvigorating critical studies of science and technology. For Marxist, feminist, postcolonial, anti-racist, and anti-homophobic progressive traditions, critical legal studies as scholarship and practice provide important models for science studies. These models make sense of and make use of an institution while challenging its legitimacy. Neo-institutionalist theory allows greater analytic purchase on the mechanisms and strategy which shape organizations and fields and their responses to changes in their internal and external environments, and in particular, engagement with the problems of legitimacy which challenge law, science, and science studies.