Legal Services for the Poor A Comparative and Contemporary Analysis of Interorganizational Politics

Subjects:

• Sociology » Social Work

Reviews:

• An interesting and revealing study of five legal services programs (two rural, one suburban, two in large central cities) in a single unnamed state, based on 184 interviews conducted in 1980. Kessler explores why some programs pursue law reform activities while others restrict themselves to servicing individual clients. Although poverty lawyers tend to be quite liberal, varying local organizational contexts affect their legal strategies. Two fine chapters examine the suburban and central city programs in detail; each provides a gold mine of quotes about the relative freedom to pursue legal reform. In the central city, poverty lawyers can attempt law reform because effective community groups support them, but suburban poverty lawyers avoid law reform because the shared conservative views of the local bench, bar, and politicians discourage boat rocking. Ironically, the national Legal Services Corporation has had little impact on any of the local agencies. Kessler concludes that a pluralistic organizational environment is necessary for legal services to engage in law reform activities. The book ... should interest scholars of welfare and organizational theory, and upper-division and graduate students.
  —Choice
• . . . Mark Kessler, a political scientist, has presented a comprehensive empirical study of the structure of legal services practice. . . . The book is useful both for students of legal history and social movements and for those who study the structure of organizations. . .
  —Law & Society Review

Table of Contents:

• Introduction
• Toward a Theory of Legal Activity
• The Operating Environment of Legal Services Programs
• Suburban Legal Services: Constraints on Poverty Lawyers
• Metro City Legal Services: Freedom to Pursue Law Reform
• The Lawyers
• The Organizational Context
• The Intergovernmental Politics of Legal Activity
• Legal Services and Equal Justice
• Appendix A: Methodology
• Appendix B: Research Instruments