Why do some lawyers devote themselves to a given social movement or political cause? How are such deeds of individual commitment and personal belief justly executed, given the ideals of disinterested professional service to which lawyers are (in theory, at least) supposed to adhere? What can we learn from such lawyers about the relationship between law and politics?Cause Lawyering is a wise and varied collection of responses to these questions, featuring a number of distinguished legal scholars concerned with anti-poverty lawyers, lawyers who work against capital punishment, immigration lawyers, and other lawyers working to end oppression. Editors Austin Sarat and Stuart Scheingold have assembled here a valuable cross-national portrait of lawyers compelled to sacrifice financial gain so as to use their legal skills in the promotion of a more just society. These telling and important essays fully explore the relationship between cause lawyering and the organized legal professions of many different countries--the US, England, South Africa, Israel, Cuba, and so forth. They describe the utility of law as a resource in political struggles and, conversely, highlight the constraints under which lawyers necessarily operate when they turn to politics. Some provide broad theoretical overviews; others present rich case studies.Advancing a fundamental argument about the very nature of the legal profession, this book explains the strategies that cause lawyers deploy, as well as the challenges they face in trying to be legally astute and effective while remaining politically devoted and aware. Although it is a controversial way of practicing law, cause lawyering, as explicated in the essays in this volume, is indeed indispensable to the legitimization of professional authority.
Author(s): Austin Sarat, Stuart Scheingold
Year: 1998
Language: English
Pages: 576
Contents......Page 8
Contributors......Page 10
1. Cause Lawyering and the Reproduction of Professional Authority: An Introduction......Page 14
I. Contexts and Conditions of Cause Lawyering......Page 40
2. The Causes of Cause Lawyering: Toward an Understanding of the Motivation and Commitment of Social Justice Lawyers......Page 42
3. Speaking Law to Power: Occasions for Cause Lawyering......Page 80
4. The Struggle to Politicize Legal Practice: A Case Study of Left-Activist Lawyering in Seattle......Page 129
II. Cause Lawyering and the Organization of Practice......Page 160
5. Norris, Schmidt, Green, Harris, Higginbotham & Associates: The Sociolegal Import of Philadelphia Cause Lawyers......Page 162
6. Still Trying: Cause Lawyering for the Poor and Disadvantaged in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania......Page 192
7. Critical Lawyers: Social Justice and the Structures of Private Practice......Page 212
8. Destruction of Houses and Construction of a Cause: Lawyers and Bedouins in the Israeli Courts......Page 238
III. Strategies of Cause Lawyering under Liberal Legalism......Page 270
9. Rethinking Law's "Allurements": A Relational Analysis of Social Movement Lawyers in the United States......Page 272
10. Caring about Individual Cases: Immigration Lawyering in Britain......Page 304
11. Between (the Presence of) Violence and (the Possibility of) Justice: Lawyering against Capital Punishment......Page 328
IV. The Possibilities of Cause Lawyering beyond Liberal Legalism......Page 358
12. Cause Lawyering in the Third World......Page 360
13. Lawyers' Causes in Indonesia and Malaysia......Page 442
14. Attorneys for the People, Attorneys for the Land: The Emergence of Cause Lawyering in the Israeli-Occupied Territories......Page 464
15. Cause Lawyers and Social Movements: A Comparative Perspective on Democratic Change in Argentina and Brazil......Page 498
16. All or Nothing: An Inquiry into the (Im)Possibility of Cause Lawyering under Cuban Socialism......Page 534
Select Bibliography......Page 558
C......Page 564
D......Page 565
G......Page 566
J......Page 567
M......Page 568
P......Page 569
S......Page 570
Z......Page 571
