Cause Lawyering

This Article explores intertwined contemporary crises via the Critical Legal Research framework (“CLR”), as initially developed by the critical legal scholars Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic. CLR as conceived of in this Article entails a truly radical approach to the legal research and analysis regime. While the traditional research regime—i.e., as taught in law schools and utilized in practice—functions to homogenize research outcomes towards hegemonic ends, a critically “reconstructed” approach to legal and broader socio-legal research permits more transformative futures. Specifically, CLR as deployed within such modes as radical cause lawyering can help engender genuine systemic “re-formations” of the ecological political economy beyond mere law “reform.”

Next, this Article applies the CLR framework to three intertwined crises: climate change and the broader ecological crisis (i.e., termed the “Capitalocene” by critical commentators); the COVID-19 global pandemic and accompanying social and economic catastrophe, and; the racial state violence and intersecting oppressions along lines of class, gender, LGBTQ+ status, immigrant status, etc. that catalyzed the mass 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising. This illustrative CLR application demonstrates that such crises ultimately emanate from the unjust and ecologically unsustainable white patriarchal capitalist paradigm—and that, correspondingly, CLR-influenced radical cause lawyering modes could help drive transformative futures beyond this paradigm in its entirety.

Focusing on the relationship between African political actors and their lawyers enables us to see the history of Africa’s decolonization as an assemblage of legal processes through which a belief in universal democratic law — meaning law accessible to and in the service of everyone, including colonial subjects — nourished an awareness of the power of universally equal rights — meaning rights for all regardless of citizenship, economic or social status, degree of education, and religious, racial or cultural identity. In viewing the law as transformative with a potential to decolonize the structures of colonialism, Africans claimed their legal, political, and civil rights in the early years of decolonization. The alliance they formed with anti-colonialist lawyers forged the practice of claiming both individual rights and the collective right of the imperially governed to determine their political futures as equals. It was a practice that required a revolutionary transformation from the legally plural systems assigning variegated rights to the citizens and subjects of empires into political systems imagined to grant universal access to a more democratic law.

This is the story of a group of abolitionist lawyers who devoted themselves to working within a legal system that they considered to be fundamentally unjust and illegitimate. These “resistance lawyers” used the limited and unfriendly procedural tools of the hated Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 to frustrate, oppose, and, if possible, dismantle the operation of that law. Abolitionist resistance lawyers were forthrightly committed both to ensuring that their clients remained free and to using the cases that arose under the Fugitive Slave Law to wage a proxy war against the institution of slavery. Their daily direct service practices were inextricably linked to their movement politics and aspirations for systemic reform. Using new archival research that upends the existing historical consensus, I show that this linked practice was dramatically more effective than previously thought, both in protecting individual clients and as a means of building political opposition to slavery in local and national politics. This history should serve as a provocation for contemporary resistance lawyering. Many lawyers today practice within a legal system that they oppose in the hope of frustrating or dismantling that system. I suggest that today’s resistance lawyers can learn from the abolitionists’ integration of politics and daily practice as they fight to increase the political power and salience of their own work.

Legal ethicists have long debated the circumstances, if any, under which a lawyer may ethically deviate from the traditional model of the client-attorney relationship by failing to zealously advocate for her client’s legally permissible goals. One camp (“the traditionalists”) has tended to insist that the lawyer, like the doctor, has an unwavering duty to single-mindedly dedicate herself to her client’s ends, lest she become a "double agent," while a second camp (“the critics”) has tended to argue that the primary aim of the lawyer should be justice.

This Note, which was cited as recommended reading in The Green Bag's Almanac of Exemplary Legal Writing of 2006, stakes out a middle ground in this debate about professional accountability and role morality by analogizing cause lawyers to physician-researchers.

I argue, against the traditionalists, that a lawyer need not single-mindedly pursue her client’s interests at the expense of her own values. Traditionalists often draw on analogies to the patient-doctor relationship to support the zealous advocacy model of lawyering. In fact, however, the human subject research that has been the mainstay of medical progress is a compromise between society’s need for that progress and a recognition of the physician as person, on the one hand, and the traditional understanding of the physician as fiduciary to (and, when therapy is scarce, zealous advocate for) her patients, on the other. The existence of a broad consensus both within the medical profession and in society at large that experimental research to which the patient-subject consents is ethical suggests that cause lawyering’s similar reprioritization of client and cause may also be ethical under similar circumstances.

Contrary to many critics, however, I argue that the client-attorney relationship must remain essentially client-centered. A lawyer who departs from the traditional model may not conscript her client into service to her cause without the client’s voluntary, informed consent — regardless of how just the cause is or how strongly the client does (or, in the lawyer’s view, should) identify with it. The attorney owes her client the opportunity to make a voluntary, informed decision about whether the client believes that the potential benefits of participating in the lawyer’s legal activism outweighs the risks.

In short, I argue that the real ethical problem of cause lawyering (and other nontraditional approaches) is not that of the double agent, but that of the secret agent — the lawyer who conceals from her client (whether consciously or not) her readiness to place her cause (or the common good, or the interests of other clients) above her client.

Au croisement de la méthode historique et des études de genre, cet article porte sur les voyages réalisés par la juriste et missionnaire Sœur Marie-André du Sacré-Cœur en Afrique occidentale dans les années 1930. Il vise à démontrer le rôle des voyages dans la construction d’un combat féministe qui se concrétisera par une réforme juridique, le « décret Mandel » du 15 juin 1939. Or le texte de ce décret a été rédigé par Sœur Marie-André elle-même, établissant l’influence inattendue du catholicisme sur le droit républicain des années 1930.

At the crossroads of historical method and gender studies, this article focuses on the travels of the jurist and missionary Sr Marie-André du Sacré-Cœur in West Africa in the 1930s. It aims to demonstrate the role of the travels in the construction of a feminist struggle which will take the form of a legal reform, the “Mandel decree” of 15 june 1939. The text of the this decree was written by Sr Marie-André herself, illustrating the unexpected influence of Catholicism on the Republican law of the 1930s.

Public interest litigation often involves working with cause lawyers (i.e., those who work with and support social causes), which are understudied in Canada. This paper synthesizes some initial results, themes and issues from over 30 semi-structured qualitative interviews with Canadian cause lawyers regarding how they consider and use assorted strategies to attain their goals. As cause lawyering encompasses a significant breadth of potential activities and issues, this research focuses on lawyers who met three combined criteria: working for disadvantaged groups to improve their status quo in systemic ways; using legal skills in some broad way, including outside formal practice; and compensation not being the main driver for their work. The lawyers were based in private law firms, clinics, other non-governmental organizations and academia, and their work supported a variety of causes and specific issues.

The interviewees illustrate how Canadian cause lawyers are pragmatic and strategic about using diverse methods to achieve their objectives. For example, the lawyers employ combinations of traditional public interest litigation, other litigation and summary advice, law reform, education and capacity building, media advocacy, and community engagement and work. The actual mixture for each lawyer varies depending on the lawyer's role, issue context and opportunities, organizational focus and structure, and other factors. Administrative work and resource constraints also have important impacts, particularly given the nature of cause lawyering work and context. These approaches are consistent with lawyers being realistic about the significance and effectiveness of law, including viewing rights as important but contingent political resources rather than mythologizing them. They also reinforce the constitutive role of law in society, including how law and society impact each other. The research thus provides key insights into how cause lawyers use such perspectives and tools to contribute successfully to social change.

In the 1970s, the French lawyer Jean-Jacques de Félice served as defense counsel for Cléophas Kamitatu-Massamba of Congo-Zaïre, who was expelled from France in 1972 even though he had obtained political refugee status. At the request of Mobutu Sese Seko, the French Minister of the Interior had censored Kamitatu’s critical portrayal of the Mobutu regime, La Grande Mystification du Congo (published by François Maspero Press in 1970). The Kamitatu case illustrates how, even as France ratified the 1967 Protocol of the Geneva Convention on Refugees in 1971, immigration, censorship, and late Gaullist era Africa policies dominated political discussions. The attempts to censure Kamitatu’s book published by a French publisher and to deport him despite his status as political refugee, show how various facets of French government engaged with international laws regulating refugees and deportation at the very time that Jacques Foccart, who had oriented France’s Africa policy since 1958, sought to integrate Congo-Zaïre into France’s sphere of influence in Africa. Kamitatu’s story thus exposes the network of Jacques Foccart as detrimental to French civil liberties, African opposition politics, and international refugee protocols alike. The chapter draws primarily on Kamitatu’s legal case files in the archives his of lawyer, Jean-Jacques de Félice. It places cause lawyering in historical perspective, promotes use of the lawyer’s archive as fertile historical method, and considers state and non-state actor networks in a common analytical framework.

Jean-Jacques de Félice joua un rôle crucial d’animateur au sein du Mouvement d’action judiciaire. Créé en mai 68 en réaction aux événements, sous le nom de Groupement d’action judiciaire, cette organisation de juristes inventa de nouvelles manières de penser le droit, mais aussi de le mobiliser à des fins politiques. Les archives de ce mouvement disponibles dans le fonds de Félice permettent de mettre en évidence les potentialités subversives mais aussi les tensions inédites issues de ces nouvelles formes de militantisme par le droit.

The Italian Court of Cassation has decided that same-sex marriages entered into abroad cannot be registered in Italy because of their unfitness to produce effects - no longer because of their purported "non-existence". The European Court of Human Rights has radically overcome the approach that a difference of gender between the parties to the marriage is a prerequisite. The decision of the Court of Cassation maintains continuity with the previous decisions of the Italian Constitutional Court and may be seen as an example of what Lawrence Friedman defined as "disruption through court".
Xenia Chiaramonte, A case of creative disruption: the Italian Court of Cassation rules on same-sex marriage [Gay rights - Same-sex couples - Same-sex marriage - Registration]

La Corte di Cassazione stabilisce che il matrimonio fra gay contratto all’estero non è trascrivibile in Italia per inidoneità a produrre effetti, non più per inesistenza. La CEDU ha radicalmente superato la concezione secondo cui la diversità di sesso dei nubendi è presupposto indispensabile per il matrimonio. La decisione è in linea di continuità con le precedenti pronunce della Corte Costituzionale e può essere vista come un esempio di ciò che Lawrence Friedman ha definito "disgregazione realizzata attraverso i tribunali".

The author provides an overview of recent critical works on human rights that constitute important contributions to the literature and ties together key threads from the discourse. Monographs, edited collections, and select articles on human rights are examined that draw primarily on critical legal theory and feminist approaches, among others, such as radical democracy and radical cause lawyering. Also explored are intersections between the critical human rights scholarship surveyed and recent works on ecological feminism and environmental human rights. The author argues that such collected works are invaluable contributions for those seeking transformative approaches to law and social change through the critical human rights lens.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Legal Reference Services Quarterly on 09/24/2019, available online:
https://doi.org/10.1080/0270319X.2019.1656458

In the past few decades, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has decided a high number of cases dealing with Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Transsexual (LGBT) rights. Its judgments importantly shape the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) and, thus, the legal obligations of the Member States to the Convention. Therefore, a benevolent decision by the ECtHR can be an important victory in the struggle for LGBT rights. Decisions by the ECtHR have the character of de facto policies. This fact opens up promising opportunities for advocates; by means of litigation, they can engage in the judicial decision making process.
This paper will shortly introduce the topic of LGBT rights litigation before the ECtHR (1), discuss the Court as a policy maker (2) and the purpose of strategic litigation (3), and examine the opportunities for LGBT rights advocates within the Court’s jurisprudence (4, 5). By proposing an activist-centred reading of the case law, it will discern different “windows of opportunity” for advocacy within the ECtHR’s same-sex family case law (5) and suggests that strategic litigation can be an interesting route towards more equality (6).

This paper appeared in the proceedings from the conference  "Rights On The Move – Rainbow Families in Europe" (pp  53-73), held in Trento (Italy) on 16-17 October 2014, edited by Carlo Casonato and Alexander Schuster.

The proceedings are also available online under: http://eprints.biblio.unitn.it/4448/1/Casonato-Schuster-ROTM_Proceedings-2014.pdf

Despite international conventions and human rights declarations, millions of people have suffered and continue to suffer torture, slavery, or violent deaths, with no remedy or recourse. They have fallen, in essence, “below the law,” outside of law’s protection. Often violated by their own governments, sometimes with support from transnational corporations, or nations benefiting from human rights violations, how can these victims find justice?  Lawyers Beyond Borders reveals the inner workings of the advances and retreats in the quest for redress and restoration of human rights for those whom international legal-political systems have failed. The process of justice begins in the US, with a handful of human rights lawyers steeped in the American tradition of advancing civil rights through civil litigation. As the civil rights movement gained traction and an ample supply of lawyers, this small cadre turned their attention toward advancing international human rights, via the US legal system. They sought to build another piece of the rights revolution, this time for survivors of egregious human rights violations in faraway lands. These cases were among the most unlikely to be slated for victory: The abuses occurred abroad; the victims are aliens, usually with few, if any, resources; the perpetrators are politically powerful, resourced, and well connected, often members of governments, militaries, or multinational corporations. The legal and political systems’ structures are mostly stacked against these survivors, many who bear the scars of trauma and terror.

Lawyers Beyond Borders is about agency. It is about how, in the face of powerful interests and seemingly insurmountable obstacles—political, psychological, economic, geographical, and physical—a small group of lawyers and survivors navigated a terrain of daunting barriers to begin building, case-by-case, new pathways to justice for those who otherwise would have none.

El presente artículo aborda la cuestión de los " abogados populares " , con el objetivo de conocer y comprender cuáles son los aspectos centrales que caracterizan sus prácticas profesionales e identificar los principales obstáculos para el desarrollo de sus intervenciones. Para ello se propone una estrategia meto-dológica enmarcada en el enfoque cualitativo que combina el trabajo empírico y el análisis teórico con la intención de trascender la mera descripción del hacer de estos actores, y poder brindar una explicación de sus prácticas profesionales.
Abstract
This article addresses the issue of " cause lawyers " in order to know and understand what the main aspects that characterize their professional practices are, and identify the main obstacles to the development of their interventions. We propose a methodological strategy, framed in the qualitative approach , that combines the empirical and the theoretical analysis, in order to transcend the mere description of the activities of these actors and to provide an explanation of their professional practices.

Ce colloque vise à développer une réflexion interdisciplinaire sur les
circulations/migrations familiales par lentrée des usages du droit. Soumises à des normes
nationales et internationales, les circulations et les migrations ont un impact sur la
formation et la dissolution de la conjugalité, la filiation et la parenté et la
reproduction/procréation. Ces moments constitutifs de la vie familiale sont régulés par un
pluralisme juridique alliant le respect du statut personnel des individus et des droits
fondamentaux. Pourtant les politiques migratoires préconisées à léchelle nationale,
européenne ou internationale conduisent les individus à se saisir du droit en fonction de
leurs besoins, mais aussi de leur statut administratif, nationalité, genre, origines ethniques,
âge, et de leurs capitaux socio-économiques et culturels. Les individus sont confrontés à
des appareils institutionnels complexes, à des lois contradictoires, à des administrations
démunies, ainsi quà des tribunaux surchargés faisant face à une jurisprudence en constante
évolution. Dans ce contexte, le droit peut être perçu comme le résultat dun processus de
régulation institutionnelle ou comme une ressource mobilisable par les individus
directement concernés, voire par ceux qui les aident et les soutiennent pour sen sortir. Pour
problématiser ces enjeux, les communications du colloque questionnent les usages du droit
(individuels, militants et collectifs, institutionnels, diplomatiques et politiques) à la lumière
de différentes configurations migratoires et rendent visible les formes différentes que le
droit peut revêtir ainsi la pluralité des acteurs qui sen saisissent.

Arrestation du dirigeant Jacques Duclos à la suite des manifestations contre le général américain "Ridgway la peste", accusations de complot, répression militaire des "soldats du refus", affaire Audin, tuerie de Charonne. A l'heure de la guerre froide, des conflits indochinois et algérien, les militants communistes affrontent la mécanique répressive d'un État lancé dans la chasse aux "criminels politiques". Nourri d'archives inédites et de nombreux témoignages, le livre de Vanessa Codaccioni nous entraîne dans les coulisses politiques des poursuites judiciaires orchestrées contre les opposants. Elle montre comment les agents de l'Etat répriment leurs "populations cibles", mais aussi comment en retour, au sein du PCF, la répression est utilisée à des fins politiques et militantes. Mais comment devient-on le "héros" d'un groupe ou, à l'inverse, un "traître à la patrie" ? Qui faut-il être et quel crime faut-il avoir commis pour se retrouver au coeur d'une affaire d'atteinte à la sûreté de l'Etat ? En quoi le procès politique est-il l'une des manifestations les plus visibles de l'affrontement entre le pouvoir central et les ennemis du régime ? En portant l'analyse au coeur de ces relations conflictuelles, ce livre de sociologie historique renouvelle largement notre connaissance de la IVe République et des débuts de la Ve, et éclaire les rapports entre l'Etat et ses opposants en périodes de crise.