Social Justice Lawyering

Our goal is to help law students maintain their ideals, give them a much richer view of practice and the profession than they gain in most law school courses, and stimulate them to think broadly about the role of lawyers and law in contemporary American political activism. Therefore, we emphasize questions of the organization of the profession and the delivery of legal services to the middle class and the poor, as well as materials on professional responsibility. Effectively, the strategies and activities of public interest lawyers depend on what legal claims are possible at the state and federal levels and on the roles they play in work with community activists. We therefore explore these issues systematically, allowing emphasis on different themes and substantive areas depending on the interests and focus of the professor and students.

Social Justice Lawyering involves several aspects: the organization of the profession (bringing together lawyers with people in need of legal services), work to carve out legal claims on behalf of oppressed people and to defend what has been won before, and the struggles in the lives of real people and communities for whom lawyers are only usually a small part of the story.