Public Interest Lawyering is the first comprehensive analysis of public interest lawyering that is suitable as a law school elective text and/or advanced legal profession courses and seminars. Drawing upon a range of theoretical and empirical perspectives, this timely textbook examines the lives of public interest lawyers, the clients and causes they serve, the contexts within which they work, the strategies they deploy, and the challenges they face today. Features: The first comprehensive overview of the broad range of contemporary issues faced by public interest lawyers in any American law school text. Thorough discussion of important theoretical issues about the scope and definition of public interest lawyering. Addresses American public interest law from a historical perspective with focus on current issues. Expansive examination of the settings in which public interest practice occurs, including nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and private law firms. Presents the advantages and limits of different legal strategies in public interest practice, including lobbying, public education, community organizing, and community economic development. Addresses contemporary challenges of public interest law in context, including economics and financing, legal ethics, the role of legal education, and the globalization of public interest practice. Discusses critiques of public interest law, including a reflection about the role of lawyers in social movements that addresses contemporary critiques. Ethical obligations of public interest lawyers. Explores special issues related to lawyer-client relations in social change contexts. Extensive coverage of: Models of law reform organizations. Conservative cause lawyering. Government lawyers. The economics of social change lawyering. Global social change lawyering.

This book attempts to convey some of the challenges that those wielding the law for social change purposes have faced and the successes they have achieved. By intention, it is more a studied appreciation than a critical analysis of their efforts. We asked an international team of consultants to help us document and describe how various law-based strategies have worked in very different settings, to draw out connections between those efforts, and to highlight some of the insights that emerge from grantees' experiences in law-related work. We also asked them to help us learn more about the ways the Foundation has played a role in these efforts. Known as the Global Law Programs Learning Initiative (GLPLI), this effort is not definitive, but rather suggestive. Our goal is to contribute to more serious future reflection and, ultimately, more effective programs in this field.

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

Public Interest Litigation in South Africa offers grounded accounts - by leaders in the field - of the campaigns, cases, and causes that have defined key areas of public interest litigation in the country since the constitutional transition. The authors share their perspectives on the struggles led by people, communities, activists, and civil society organisations to realise the vision of the Constitution. The book shares the legal narratives of those particular struggles in the hope that this will contribute to the broader continuous struggle for social justice. Part One of the book considers the history of public interest litigation, the public interest sector today, public interest litigation in the context of international law, the ethics and politics of public interest litigation, and procedure. Part Two addresses public interest litigation in key areas of law: property rights, gender, basic services, health care, LGBTI equality, children's rights, basic education, freedom of expression, access to information, and prisoners' rights. Public Interest Litigation in South Africa seeks to share more of the stories of what has been achieved in the courts, beyond the well-trodden, landmark appellate decisions, as a contribution to informed and critical engagement.

A timely and multifaceted portrait of the lawyers who serve the diverse constituencies of the conservative movement, Lawyers of the Right explains what unites and divides lawyers for the three major groups—social conservatives, libertarians, and business advocates—that have coalesced in recent decades behind the Republican Party. Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than seventy lawyers who represent conservative and libertarian nonprofit organizations, Ann Southworth explores their values and identities and traces the implications of their shared interest in promoting political strategies that give lawyers leading roles. She goes on to illuminate the function of mediator organizations—such as the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy—that have succeeded in promoting cooperation among different factions of conservative lawyers. Such cooperation, she finds, has aided efforts to drive law and the legal profession politically rightward and to give lawyers greater prominence in the conservative movement. Southworth concludes, though, that tensions between the conservative law movement’s elite and populist elements may ultimately lead to its undoing.

Softbound - New, softbound print book.

The legal rights of Americans are threatened as never before. In No Contest, Ralph Nader and Wesley J. Smith reveal how power lawyers--Kenneth Starr perhaps the most notorious among them--misuse and manipulate the law at the expense of fairness and equity. Nader and Smith document how corporate lawyers File baseless lawsuits Use court secrecy to their unfair advantage Engage in billing fraud Nader and Smith sound the warning that this system-wide abuse is eroding our basic legal rights, and propose a positive, commonsense vision of what should be done to reverse the corporate-inspired corruption of civil justice. Timely, incisive, and highly readable, this is a book for all citizens who believe that prompt access to justice is the backbone of democracy, and a precious right to be reclaimed.