The authors would like to thank Richard Abel, Sameer Ashar, Gary Blasi, Catherine Elkes, Julia Figueira-McDonough, Derek Jones, Larry Salomon, Dominique Snyder, and Jonathan Zasloff, as well as the Open Society Institute’s Center on Crime, Communities & Culture and the Skadden Fellowship Foundation.Ĥ8:3 Cummings & Eagly CummingsEagly HCRFinal.doc (02/02/01 12:39 AM)Ī CRITICAL REFLECTION ON LAW AND ORGANIZING ** Coordinating Attorney, Immigrant Domestic Violence Project, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Los Angeles, California. 480 * Staff Attorney, Community Development Project, Public Counsel Law Center, Los Angeles, California. L AW AND O RGANIZING AS P ROGRESSIVE L EGAL P RACTICE. T HE E VOLUTION OF THE L AW AND O RGANIZING M OVEMENT. This Article initi- ates a critical reflection on law and organizing by providing a historical account of its evolution, examining how poverty lawyers are incorporating organizing into their day-to-day practice, and analyzing some of the structural, practical, and ethi- cal issues posed by this new approach. Yet, although it holds out rich pos- sibilities, the law and organizing paradigm is still largely untested as a practical strategy and has not been subjected to close academic scrutiny. On the ground, lawyers have deployed organizing tactics to achieve sig- nificant gains for marginalized communities.
In the academy, this model has attracted heightened attention from legal scholars dissatisfied with the potential of litigation efforts to produce meaningful social change. What has emerged from this dialogue is a new community-based approach to progressive law- yering that combines legal advocacy and grassroots action in a form of practice that this Article terms “law and organizing.” The law and organizing model privi- leges movement politics over law reform efforts and suggests that lawyers should facilitate community mobilization rather than practice in the conventional mode. Eagly ** Over the last decade, poverty law scholars and practitioners have engaged in a lively debate about the relationship between law and social change. 443 48:3 Cummings & Eagly CummingsEagly HCRFinal.doc (02/02/01 12:39 AM) A C RITICAL R EFLECTION ON L AW AND O RGANIZING Scott L.
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