Llewellyn's major published works have strong affinities with each other but they cannot be said to form a neat pattern. Each reveals aspects of his ideas and approach, but none brings them together into a single coherent statement of a general theory. At first sight Llewellyn's work appears to contrast sharply with that of system builders like Bentham and Lasswell. He felt constricted by collections of tightly drawn definitions; he tended to use vague terms when working at a high level of generality; orderly presentation of his ideas did not come naturally to him and on the whole he was more concerned with ‘theories of the middle range’ than with ‘ultimate questions’.

However, he was fully in sympathy with systematic thinkers in believing in the value of seeing things in a broad perspective. He was also anxious to fit his ideas into a single, reasonably coherent framework. As early as 1927 he wrote a paper on ‘Mechanisms of Group Control’, which represents his first serious attempt to state a general sociological theory of law. He was dissatisfied with it and withheld publication. Between 1927 and 1940 he made several further attempts, all of which were abandoned before completion. The preparation of The Cheyenne Way stimulated him to try again. This time he was more successful and within a relatively short period, in 1940–1, he published three papers, which taken together with The Cheyenne Way provide a fairly full and coherent picture of his general ideas at this stage.