Something to Believe in: Politics, Professionalism, and Cause Lawyering.

Vol. 14 No. 8 (August 2004), pp.659-661

SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN: POLITICS, PROFESSIONALISM, AND CAUSE LAWYERING, by Stuart Scheingold and Austin Sarat. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004. 192pp. Cloth $35.00. ISBN: 0-8047-4947-7.

Reviewed by Mark C. Miller, Department of Government, Clark University. Email: MMiller@clarku.edu

This superb new book by Stuart Scheingold and Austin Sarat is a rich synthesis of several decades of research on cause lawyers and cause lawyering. This pair of fine scholars has edited two previous volumes on cause lawyering in the United States and in other countries (Sarat and Scheingold, 1998 and 2001) and a third appears to be forthcoming (Sarat and Scheingold, 2005). In this particular new book, the authors have synthesized and refined that research into a clear, concise, and extremely readable examination of cause lawyering in the U. S. This fairly short book is a must-read for all scholars and students interested in cause lawyers and the intersection between law and politics in the U. S. Those wanting more detail on specific issues should refer to the earlier edited volumes noted above. This latest book also points the way for future research on this important topic.

This book is so well written and so well argued that it would be an ideal supplemental book for undergraduate or graduate courses on the U.S. legal process, U.S. judicial politics, lawyers and American politics, or the legal profession. I hope that the publisher has the good sense to publish this book in paperback so that it gets the course adoptions that it clearly deserves. It is a wonderful addition to the literature.

The book begins by attempting to define cause lawyering. The authors acknowledge that, “Scholarship on cause lawyering is plagued by definitional and conceptual challenges.” They note that in the United States, cause lawyering has flourished since the 1960s and that cause lawyers pursue political and moral objectives that go well beyond the traditional objective of client service, which is the goal of most conventional lawyers. The book then compares and contrasts cause lawyering with conventional lawyering. Cause lawyers today in the United States come from both the left and the right, and they utilize a mixture of litigation and politicization strategies.

The second chapter is devoted to an examination of cause lawyering within the framework of the organized legal profession. This chapter examines professionalism within the bar and how cause lawyers may challenge traditional concepts of legal professionalism. This chapter also explores how the U.S. legal profession has evolved and adapted itself to societal needs at various points in history. It also looks at the role of the American Bar Association regarding cause lawyering and concludes by stating, “Today the organized profession is no longer as hostile to cause lawyering as it once was. Gone are the days when the president of the ABA could, as did Lewis Powell in the 1960’s, challenge the ethical foundations of cause [*660] lawyering.”

The third chapter explores the relationship between cause lawyering and legal education. The chapter examines much of the current research that finds law students leaving law school much less committed to public interest law than they were when they entered law school. The authors note that, “The core purpose and major achievement of legal education is to retool the way students think. Thinking like a lawyer requires that students substitute an allegedly objective, precise, and rational mode of thought for value-laden, emotional, and politically driven habits of mind.” The authors argue that cause lawyering with its overtly political objectives exists despite opposition to it from the law schools and legal academics. The authors conclude, “The marginalization of cause lawyering within the legal academy, as within the organized profession, is rooted in understandings of the centrality of disinterested client service to the definition of lawyer professionalism.”

The fourth chapter considers the risks and rewards of cause lawyering for those who actually practice it. It explores the various settings in which cause lawyering occurs, as well as the types of persons drawn to it. There is a fair amount of attention paid to pro bono work done by traditional large and small law firms, as well as interest groups and others who dedicate almost all their efforts to cause lawyering.

Taking a broader theoretical perspective, the fifth chapter discusses how cause lawyering promotes the values of a liberal democracy. The chapter assesses traditionally understood cause lawyering from the left, but also reports more recent research on comparable activity from the right. It also discusses cause lawyers (again from both the right and the left) who oppose liberal democracy for a variety of reasons. This chapter’s typology of cause lawyers is especially innovative and useful, blending discussions of the various goals of cause lawyers with more theoretical discussions of the foundations of liberal democracy.

The concluding chapter attempts to place American cause lawyers in a broader comparative and global perspective. The book ends with this revealing statement: “Cause lawyering in the United States and elsewhere is in constant transition as it seeks to adjust to changing configurations of state power. These transitions relate to the strategy, tactics, recruitment, reproduction, and organization of cause lawyers—as well as to relationships between cause lawyers and mainstream professionals.”

Thus Scheingold and Sarat have produced an excellent synthesis of the existing research on cause lawyers and lawyering. They have done us all a great service in writing this new book.

REFERENCES:

Sarat, Austin and Stuart Scheingold. 1998. CAUSE LAWYERING: POLITICAL COMMITMENTS AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES. New York: Oxford University Press.

Sarat, Austin and Stuart Scheingold. 2001. CAUSE LAWYERING AND THE STATE IN A GLOBAL ERA. New York: Oxford University Press. [*661]

Sarat, Austin and Stuart Scheingold. 2005. THE WORLDS CAUSE LAWYERS MAKE: STRUCTURE AND AGENCY IN LEGAL PRACTICE. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

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