Lawyers, Networks and Progressive Social Change: Lawyers Changing Lives

The book explores the collective identity of social justice lawyering in the UK, drawing on theories of cause lawyering and legal mobilisation to understand the positions taken by progressive lawyers and the connections they make between their personal and professional lives, tools, and ethical tensions. It uses a reflexive ethnographic approach to capture the stories of 35 lawyers and draws on primary sources and wider ethnographic interviews to explore the way in which lawyers' networks facilitate their collective positioning and influence their strategic decision-making.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 256 pages
Publication date: 26 January 2023
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

Social justice lawyering in the UK is a collective identity that is shaped by theories of cause lawyering and legal mobilisation. This book argues that it is essential to understand the positions that progressive lawyers collectively take in order to frame the connections they make between their personal and professional lives, the tools they use to achieve social change, and the ethical tensions presented by their work. The book takes a reflexive ethnographic approach to capture the stories of 35 lawyers working to positively transform law and policy in the UK over the last 50 years. It also draws on a wealth of primary sources, including case reports, historic campaign materials, and media analysis, alongside wider ethnographic interviews with academics, students, and lawyers and participant observation at social justice conferences, workshops, and events. The book explains the way in which lawyers' networks facilitate their collective positioning and influence their strategic decision-making, which in turn shapes their interactions with social activists, other lawyers, and the state itself.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781509950089