Public Interest Law & Policy

Class 2

Ronald W. StaudtAugust 27, 2009

Public Interest Law & Policy

What is Public Interest Law? New Lawyers- - Student Note - -1970 Rabin’s article-- 1976 Southworth’s study of the right--2005

Waiting for Gautreaux, pages 1-47

New Lawyers- Student Note 1970

Angry despair 1930s v 1970---2009? Lloyd Cutler v. Ralph Nader Note 3 definition?

process v. “preferred interests and groups”

Lawyers for Social Change- 1976

1965- all institutions under fire –Civil Rights, Vietnam

Rabin’s inquiry -- change through litigation-but not criminal defense or OEO

Definitions: subsidized attorney services

Nature of practice v. source of funds for lawyer ACLU, LDF, Sierra Club, NRDC, MALDEF

consumer representation? broad societal majoritarian views?

process definition-under represented but selective about interests they choose.

Conservative Lawyers. . . Southworth’s study -2005

Emergence of Liberal PILFs ACLU & LDF powerless minorities New PILFs --diffuse majorities

Look like law firms Not dependent on fees Critiques of legal profession in ’60s-

Nader, Halpern—lawyers self interest at odds with public interest

Nader’s View of Lawyers in 1969

Top Law Students Reject Private Practice

Conservative PILFs. . . Southworth’s study

Late ’60s Amer. for Effective Law Enforcement Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Catholic League & Nat’l Right to Life Committee

1971-- Powell’s memo

Mid ’70s Pacific Legal Foundation Mid America Legal Foundation Washington Legal Foundation Federalist Society for Law…

’80s and ’90s dozens of new conservative PILF’s

Two more perspectives “…alienation and anxiety about

the nature of lawyering work do not affect all lawyers equally. For those whose idea and practice of lawyering involves service to a cause, many of the symptoms of alienation and anxiety are absent.” Scheingold and Sarat, Something to Believe In, Stanford

U. Press, 2004.

Two more perspectives “American courts are not all-powerful

institutions. They were designed with severe limitations and placed in a political system of divided powers. To ask them to produce significant social reform is to forget their history and ignore their constraints. It is to cloud our vision with a naive and romantic belief in the triumph of right over politics. And while romance and even naivete have their charms, they are not best exhibited in courtrooms.”

Gerald N. Rosenberg, The Hollow Hope, Can Court Bring About Social Change? 2d Edition. U of C Press, 2008

Waiting for Gautreaux Early public interest work as ACLU

pro bono volunteer- Tropic of Cancer, Waukegan schools, Anastopolo

“Litigation-an effective lever for social change!”

Waiting for Gautreaux History of post Civil War Jim Crow

Migration North after 2 wars Brown in 1954 Rosa Parks, CORE, SCLC, I Have a Dream! Montgomery & Voting Rights Act

Segregation & violence in the North Dual housing markets, racial covenants and

violent confinement– ghetto impact

Waiting for Gautreaux Dream Team 6 months of study & research

Key response by HUD to West Side Federation – preferences + City council opposition!

History of Public Housing in 1930s –segregated Taylor & Wood after WWII More ghetto buildings in pipeline

Waiting for Gautreaux “Find us some plaintiffs” Marches and Deals

Martin Luther King, Al Raby, Jesse Jackson and Richard Daley.

Chicago Freedom Movement Leadership Council Great Negotiation

Regrets

Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities

CHA promise CHA recognizes that heavy concentrations

of public housing should not again be built in the City of Chicago…In the future it will seek scattered sites for public housing and will limit the height of new public housing structures in high density areas to eight stories, with housing for families with children limited to the first two stories. Whenever possible, smaller units will be built.