Lawyers and Movements Legal Mobilization in Transformative Times

An innovative approach for understanding how law matters in contemporary social movements that rise to meet the twin challenges of American democracy: promoting liberal values of equality and inclusion, while fortifying the rule of law itself.

Fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement, America confronts a new democratic reckoning. What role do-and should-lawyers play in strengthening collective action at this pivotal moment? In Lawyers and Movements, Scott L. Cummings offers an innovative answer to this age-old question, breaking from the legacy of legal liberalism to reveal the essential, yet underappreciated, work of lawyers in social struggle-redefining legal mobilization in transformative times. Building from a sweeping analysis of progressive legal theory and practice, Cummings challenges foundational critiques of lawyers as inaccurate and ill-suited to the current context. In response, he advances a new theory of legal mobilization in which control over law is at the heart of movements rising to meet the twin challenges of contemporary liberalism: promoting inclusion and equity, while fortifying democratic institutions. A call to radically rethink how lawyers contribute to progressive change, Lawyers and Movements asserts a timely challenge to democracy in crisis.

Scott L. Cummings is the Robert Henigson Professor of Legal Ethics and Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. He is faculty director of the Program on Legal Ethics and the Profession, and a longtime member of the Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and
Policy.

Preface
Part One. Introduction
ONE: Lawyers and Social Movements Now: Critical Traditions and New Directions
Part Two. Integrated Advocacy: Movements in Progressive Legal Practice
TWO: A History of Lawyers in Social Movements
THREE: Movement Lawyering in the New Millennium
Part Three. Divided Theory: Movements in Progressive Legal Thought
FOUR: The Law-Politics Problem
FIVE: Legal Liberalism and Its Discontents
SIX: The Empirical Path of Law and Social Movements
SEVEN: The Promise and Problems of Movement Liberalism
Part Four. An Integrated Theory of Lawyers and Social Movements
EIGHT: Division: Fault Lines and Fundamental Problems
NINE: Synthesis: Integrated Theory for Integrated Advocacy
Part Five. Applying Theory to Practice
TEN: Reframing the Foundational Critiques
ELEVEN; Rethinking the Progressive Canon
Part Six. Conclusion
TWELVE: Past as Future? Reclaiming Legal Liberalism in Illiberal Times
Notes
Bibliography
Index