Full Description
An innovative approach for understanding how law matters in contemporary social movements that rise to meet the twin challenges of American democracy: promoting liberal values of equality and inclusion, while fortifying the rule of law itself.
Fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement, America confronts a new democratic reckoning. What role do-and should-lawyers play in strengthening collective action at this pivotal moment? In Lawyers and Movements, Scott L. Cummings offers an innovative answer to this age-old question, breaking from the legacy of legal liberalism to reveal the essential, yet underappreciated, work of lawyers in social struggle-redefining legal mobilization in transformative times. Building from a sweeping analysis of progressive legal theory and practice, Cummings challenges foundational critiques of lawyers as inaccurate and ill-suited to the current context. In response, he advances a new theory of legal mobilization in which control over law is at the heart of movements rising to meet the twin challenges of contemporary liberalism: promoting inclusion and equity, while fortifying democratic institutions. A call to radically rethink how lawyers contribute to progressive change, Lawyers and Movements asserts a timely challenge to democracy in crisis.
Contents
Preface
Part One. Introduction
ONE: Lawyers and Social Movements Now: Critical Traditions and New Directions
Part Two. Integrated Advocacy: Movements in Progressive Legal Practice
TWO: A History of Lawyers in Social Movements
THREE: Movement Lawyering in the New Millennium
Part Three. Divided Theory: Movements in Progressive Legal Thought
FOUR: The Law-Politics Problem
FIVE: Legal Liberalism and Its Discontents
SIX: The Empirical Path of Law and Social Movements
SEVEN: The Promise and Problems of Movement Liberalism
Part Four. An Integrated Theory of Lawyers and Social Movements
EIGHT: Division: Fault Lines and Fundamental Problems
NINE: Synthesis: Integrated Theory for Integrated Advocacy
Part Five. Applying Theory to Practice
TEN: Reframing the Foundational Critiques
ELEVEN; Rethinking the Progressive Canon
Part Six. Conclusion
TWELVE: Past as Future? Reclaiming Legal Liberalism in Illiberal Times
Notes
Bibliography
Index
