This paper synthesizes some observations regarding a broader research in which both literature and methods from social sciences were employed. These resources have become important instruments for understanding legal actors' speeches and their judicial practices, with an emphasis on the analysis of consensus building in the criminal justice system of the city of Rio de Janeiro. This emphasis was justified because in the course of such analysis it was possible to observe law through a non-normative perspective. In order to do so, we have compared the speeches (both legal and doctrinal) with the practices and speeches of the actors themselves about the "consensus" as a category. By discussing the results obtained with this exercise, we expect to contribute to the reflection about the paths of the Brazilian legal research and the indispensable dialogue with contributions from other fields.