Negotiating Justice
Progressive Lawyering, Low-Income Clients, and the Quest for Social Change
Format:Paperback
Publisher:New York University Press
Published:22nd Apr '11
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
An analysis of how notions of practice can inhibit urban legal service lawyers and their clients' pursuit of justice in the American legal system
While many young people become lawyers for the big bucks, others are motivated by the pursuit of social justice, seeking to help people for whom legal services are financially, socially, or politically inaccessible. These progressive lawyers often bring a considerable degree of idealism to their work, and many leave the field due to insurmountable red tape and spiraling disillusionment. But what about those who stay? And what do their clients think? Negotiating Justice explores how progressive lawyers and their clients negotiate the dissonance between personal idealism and the realities of a system that doesn’t often champion the rights of the poor.
Corey S. Shdaimah draws on over fifty interviews with urban legal service lawyers and their clients to provide readers with a compelling behind-the-scenes look at how different notions of practice can present significant barriers for both clients and lawyers working with limited resources, often within a legal system that many view as fundamentally unequal or hostile. Through consideration of the central themes of progressive lawyering—autonomy, collaboration, transformation, and social change—Shdaimah presents a subtle and complex tableau of the concessions both lawyers and clients often have to make as they navigate the murky and resistant terrains of the legal system and their wider pursuits of justice and power.
The book, as a whole, will be a terrific resource for students who would like to leaven their academic scholarship with insights gained from observations, surveys and interviews at a real legal clinic. * City Limits Weekly *
. . . the power of theNegotiating Justicelies in its efforts to broaden the way in which we often think about the nature of progressive lawyering. . . the book has many interesting ideas and is auseful addition to the lawyering literature. -- Lolita Buckner Inniss * Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare *
In Negotiating Justice: Progressive Lawyering, Low-Income Clients, and the Quest for Social Change, Corey S. Shdaimah breaks new ground by exploring not only the lawyers', but also the clients/ understanding of the work that these lawyers do within the legal system-a system preceived by bothe to be inequitable. -- Seher Goderya * Osgoode Hall Law Journal *
Negotiating Justice is one of those exceedingly rare books that examine how lawyers and clients collaborate to produce legality. These stories will be an inspiration to law students aspiring to work in the public interest and an affirmation for the thousands of lawyers who do so daily. -- Richard Abel,author of English Lawyers between Market and State: The Politics of Professionalism
Shdaimah has produced a subtle and complex picture of legal services lawyers and their clients. While fully attentive to questions of inequality and power, she charts the ways clients maintain autonomy and dignity as well as the ways their lawyers navigate systems of which they are highly critical. This is an enormously valuable contribution to scholarship on the legal profession and on progressive lawyering. Throughout it is both rigorous and deeply humane. -- Austin Sarat,co-author of Cause Lawyers and Social Movements
“Negotiating Justice is a compelling glimpse into a world that most lawyers never visit. * California Lawyer *
“This volume is an excellent addition to the law and society literature addressing themes of cause lawyering and consciousness. Through over 50 interviews with urban service lawyers and clients, Shdaimah thoughtfully draws out the ways that the relationships between lawyers and clients address values of social justice, autonomy, collaboration, and understanding... Highly recommended. * Choice *
Negotiating Justice is the kind of book that a mentor might loan to his or her mentee. Shdaimahs work will be perfect to begin the discussion with the summer intern who asks, & Whats it really like to be a Legal Services attorney? Finally, someone took the time to record the answer. * Management Information Exchange Journal *
ISBN: 9780814708699
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 318g
239 pages