Editorial Type:
Article Category: Research Article
| Online Publication Date: 10 Jul 2013
Lawyering for Social Change: Pro Bono Publico, Cause Lawyering, and the Social Movement Society
Lawyering for Social Change: Pro Bono Publico, Cause Lawyering, and the Social Movement Society
Page Range: 179 – 196
Over the past few decades, large law firms have increasingly integrated social movement causes and organizations into their pro bono practices. In this article, I examine the field of pro bono representation and examine the various types of organizations and social movement causes that receive large-firm representation. I find that large firms represent a range of social movement issues and that this shift has increased over time. My findings support the "social movement society" thesis that movements have increasingly become integrated within mainstream institutions and have expanded to include new constituencies and claims. However, I also find that large firms channel their resources toward some issue domains over others, indicating uneven representation across the contemporary pro bono field.
American Bar Association (ABA). 2009. "Supporting Justice II: A Report on the Pro Bono Work of America's Lawyers." Chicago: American Bar Association.
American Bar Association (ABA). 2012. "Public Service: Rule 6.1 Voluntary Pro Bono Publico Service." Retrieved May 24, 2012 ( www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_6_1_voluntary_pro_bono_publico_service.html
Ansell, Chris, and Alison Gash. 2008. "Collaborative Governance in Theory and Practice." Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 18(4): 543-71.
Auerbach, Jerold. 1976. Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change. New York: Oxford University Press.
Barclay, Scott, Lynn C. Jones, and Anna-Maria Marshall. 2011. "Two Spinning Wheels: Studying Law and Social Movements." Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 54: 1-16.
Barclay, Scott, and Anna-Maria Marshall. 2005. "Supporting a Cause, Developing a Movement, and Consolidating a Practice: Cause Lawyers and Sexual Orientation Litigation in Vermont." Pp. 171-202 in The Worlds Cause Lawyers Make: Structure and Agency in Legal Practice, edited by Austin Sarat and Stuart A. Scheingold. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Boutcher, Steven A. 2009. "The Institutionalization of Pro Bono in Large Law Firms: Trends and Variation Across the AmLaw 200." Pp. 135-53 in Private Lawyers and the Public Interest: The Evolving Role of Pro Bono in the Legal Profession, edited by Robert Granfield and Lynn Mather. New York: Oxford University Press.
Boutcher, Steven A. 2010. "From Policy to Practice: Assessing the Effect of Large Law Firm Pro Bono Structure on Pro Bono Commitment." Studies in Law, Politics and Society 52: 145-167.
Chiarello, Elizabeth. 2011. "Challenging Professional Self-Regulation: Social Movement Influence on Pharmacy Rulemaking in Washington State." Work and Occupations 38(3): 303-339.
Cummings, Scott L. 2004. "The Politics of Pro Bono." UCLA Law Review 52(1): 1-149.
DC Bar Pro Bono Program. 2010. "Pro Bono Program." Retrieved January 13, 2010. ( http://www.dcbar.org/for_lawyers/pro_bono/index.cfm
Daniels, Stephen, and Joanne Martin. 2009. "Legal Services for the Poor: Access, Self-Interest, and Pro Bono." Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance 12: 145-166.
Davis, Martha F. 2001. "Our Better Half: A Public Interest Lawyer Reflects on Pro Bono Lawyering and Social Change Litigation." American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy, and Law 9: 119-128.
DiMaggio, Paul J., and Walter W. Powell. 1983. "The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields." American Sociological Review 48(2): 147-160.
Dobbin, Frank, and John R. Sutton. 1998. "The Strength of a Weak State: The Rights Revolution and the Rise of Human Resources Management Divisions." American Journal of Sociology 104(2): 441-76.
Dodson, Kyle. 2011. "The Movement Society in Comparative Perspective." Mobilization 16(4): 475-94.
Donahue, John D., and Richard J. Zeckhauser. 2011. Collaborative Governance: Private Roles for Public Goals in Turbulent Times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Edelman, Lauren. 1990. "Legal Environments and Organizational Governance: The Expansion of Due Process in the American Workplace." American Journal of Sociology 95(6): 1401-40.
Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs. 2009. "Issues Entrepreneurs: Charisma, Charisma-Producing Events, and the Shaping of Pro Bono Practice in Large Law Firms." Pp. 211-30 in Private Lawyers and the Public Interest: The Evolving Role of Pro Bono in the Legal Profession, edited by Robert Granfield and Lynn Mather. New York: Oxford University Press.
Galanter, Marc, and Thomas M. Palay. 1995. "Public Service Implications for Evolving Law Firm Size and Structure." Pp. 19-58 in The Law Firm and the Public Good, edited by Robert A. Katzmann. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute.
Granfield, Robert. 2007. "The Meaning of Pro Bono: Institutional Variations in Professional Obligations Among Lawyers." Law & Society Review 41(1): 113-146.
Granfield, Robert, and Lynn Mather. 2009. "Pro Bono, the Public Good, and the Legal Profession: An Introduction." Pp. 1-24 in Private Lawyers and the Public Interest: The Evolving Role of Pro Bono in the Legal Profession, edited by Robert Granfield and Lynn Mather. New York: Oxford University Press.
Handler, Joel F., Ellen Jane Hollingsworth, and Howard S. Erlanger. 1978. Lawyers and the Pursuit of Legal Rights. New York: Academic Press.
Heinz, John P., Robert L. Nelson, Rebecca L. Sandefur, and Edward O. Laumann. 2005. Urban Lawyers: The New Social Structure of the Bar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hilbink, Thomas M. 2004. "You Know the Type: Categories of Cause Lawyering." Law & Social Inquiry 29(3): 657-98.
Houseman, Alan W. 2002. "Civil Legal Assistance for Low-Income Persons: Looking Back and Looking Forward." Fordham Urban Law Journal 29(3): 1213-44.
Humes, Edward (2007) Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul. New York: Ecco.
Legal Services Corporation. 2005. "Documenting the Justice Gap in America." Washington, DC: Legal Services Corporation.
Levitsky, Sandra R. 2006. "To Lead with Law: Reassessing the Influence of Legal Advocacy Organizations in Social Movements." Pp. 145-163 in Cause Lawyers and Social Movements, edited by Austin Sarat and Stuart A. Scheingold. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Levitsky, Sandra R. 2007. "Niche Activism: Constructing a Unified Movement Identity in a Heterogeneous Organizational Field." Mobilization 12(3): 271-86.
Lewis, Neil A. 2007. "Official Attacks Top Law Firms Over Detainees." New York Times. January 13: A1.
Marks, F. Raymond, Kirk Leswing, and Barbara Fortinsky. 1972. The Lawyer, the Public and Professional Responsibility. Chicago: American Bar Foundation.
McCarthy, John D., and Clark McPhail. 1998. "The Institutionalization of Protest in the United States." Pp. 83-109 in The Social Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century, edited by David S. Meyer and Sidney G. Tarrow. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.
McCarthy, John D., and Mayer N. Zald. 1977. "Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory." American Journal of Sociology 82(6): 1212-41.
Meyer, David S. 2006. The Politics of Protest: Social Movements in America. New York: Oxford University Press.
Meyer, David S., and Steven A. Boutcher. 2007. "Signals and Spillover: Brown v. Board of Education and Other Social Movements." Perspectives on Politics 5(1): 81-93.
Meyer, David S., and Sidney G. Tarrow. 1998. A Movement Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield.
New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. 2010. "Pro Bono Clearinghouse." Retrieved on January 13, 2010. ( http://www.nylpi.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpProBono&show=what&focus=litigation&s=NYLPI
Powell, Michael J. 1988. From Patrician to Professional Elite: The Transformation of the New York City Bar Association. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Raeburn, Nicole C. 2004. Changing Corporate America from Inside Out: Lesbian and Gay Workplace Rights. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Rucht, Dieter, and Friedheim Neidhardt. 2002. "Towards a ‘Movement Society’? On the Possibilities of Institutionalizing Social Movements." Social Movement Studies 1(1): 7-30.
Rhode, Deborah. 2004. Access to Justice. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rhode, Deborah. 2008. "Public Interest Law: The Movement at Midlife." Stanford Law Review. 60(6): 2027-86.
Sandefur, Rebecca L. 2007. "Lawyers' Pro Bono Service and American-Style Civil Legal Assistance." Law & Society Review 41(1): 79-112.
Sarat, Austin, and Stuart A. Scheingold. 1998. "Cause Lawyering and the Reproduction of Professional Authority: An Introduction." Pp. 3-30 in Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities, edited by Austin Sarat and Stuart A. Scheingold. New York: Oxford University Press.
Scheingold, Stuart A., and Anne Bloom. 1998. "Transgressive Cause Lawyering: Practice Sites and the Politicization of the Professional." International Journal of the Legal Profession 5(2/3): 209-53.
Scheingold, Stuart A., and Austin Sarat. 2004. Something to Believe In: Politics, Professionalism, and Cause Lawyering. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
Scott, W. Richard. 2003. Organizations: Rational, Natural, and Open Systems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Shamir, Ronen, and Sara Chinsky. 1998. "Deconstruction of Houses and Construction of a Cause: Lawyers and Bedouins in Israeli Courts." Pp. 227-57 in Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities, edited by Austin Sarat and Stuart A. Scheingold. New York: Oxford University Press.
Simon, William H. 1978. "Ideology of Advocacy: Procedural Justice and Professional Ethics, The Commentary." Wisconsin Law Review 29(1): 29-144.
Soule, Sarah A., and Jennifer Earl. 2005. "A Movement Society Evaluated: Collective Protest in the United States, 1960-1986." Mobilization 10(3): 345-64.
Southworth, Ann. 2008. Lawyers of the Right: Professionalizing the Conservative Coalition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Spaulding, Norman W. 1997. "Prophet and the Bureaucrat: Positional Conflicts in Service Pro Bono Publico." Stanford Law Review 50(4): 1395-1434.
Staggenborg, Suzanne. 1988. "The Consequences of Professionalization and Formalization in the Pro-Choice Movement." American Sociological Review 53(4): 585-605.
Tarrow, Sidney G. 2005. The New Transnational Activism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Teles, Steven M. 2010. The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Toland, Bill. 2004. "Evolutionary Challenge; School board in York county Faces Suit over Required Teaching of ‘Intelligent Design.’" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 15, A-1.
Vault. 2006. Vault Guide to Law Firm Pro Bono Programs. New York: Vault, Inc.
Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts. 2010. "Pro Bono Legal Services." Retrieved January 11, 2010. ( http://www.vlany.org/legalservices/probono.php
Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts. 2010. "Legal." Retrieved January 11, 2010 ( http://www.thewala.org/legal.html
Wasserman, Stanley, and Katherine Faust. 1994. Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Wilson, Joshua C. 2009. "It Takes All Kinds: Observations from an Event-Centered Approach to Cause Lawyering." Studies in Law, Politics and Society 50: 169-206.