Document Type
Article
Publication Title
California Law Review
Volume
95
Publication Date
2007
Keywords
Social change, community voice, legal framework, corporate accountabilty, community lawyering
Abstract
Stories about law and social change can have a sameness to them. Yet in many ways, the tales told in this volume stand out from the crowd. Each story is shaped around a campaign undertaken by a community organization or coalition deeply engaged in the struggle for racial and economic justice. Attorneys appear as supporting players rather than main characters, seeking to help organizations build the power needed to achieve their goals. These lawyers translate information about the law into lay language, pressure opponents, defend the organization, open up spaces for community voice and action, and seek to establish new legal frameworks that demand greater government and corporate accountability to poor and working class people. Taken together, these stories suggest a promising vision for the role of lawyers in today's community-based battles for social change.Ti
Recommended Citation
Jennifer Gordon,
The Lawyer Is Not the Protagonist: Community Campaigns, Law, and Social Change, The Symposium: Race, Economic Justice, and Community Lawyering in the New Century: Concluding Essay, 95 Cal. L. Rev. 2133
(2007)
Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/faculty_scholarship/349
