The aim of this article is threefold. First, we provide an analysis of the concept of legal consciousness as it was understood during the socialist period (1948–1989), while taking into account the specific ideological and political configuration of the Slovak society during that period. Most importantly, we argue that the concept served as tool for the ruling Communist party to ensure the legitimation of the regime and the reproduction of existing power structures. Secondly, the objective is to explain the paucity of research on legal consciousness that started after the 1989 revolution; we seek to give an answer to the following question: why was the concept of legal consciousness almost entirely abandoned by Slovakian legal discourse after 1989? In the last part, we argue that the concept of legal consciousness should be reinvigorated in the Slovakian context and we outline our preferred theoretical model that we consider theoretically sound and appropriate. This model is a synthesis of critical and realist legal approaches—critical legal realism which incorporates some of the assumptions of critical legal theory together with legal realism, relying more specifically on the views of Alf Ross.