Cause lawyer
[10] Cause lawyers tend to choose clients on the basis of their own ideological grounds, no matter where they fall on the political, social, economic, and /or legal spectrum.
[11] The first organizations to break into cause lawyering and tear down the idea came into existence in the 20th century, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Once the newly minted non-profit law firms were established as charitable organizations eligible for IRS tax-deduction, they began to advocate on behalf of disadvantaged and underrepresented groups, advancing the civil rights and poverty legal work from decades earlier.
Major events, like the establishment of the Legal Services Corporation and subsequent restriction; decisions in Loving v. Virginia, Lawrence v. Texas, Roe v. Wade, District of Columbia v. Heller, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, Shelby County v. Holder, United States v. Windsor, and Obergfell v. Hodges; along with everyday victories and defeats of cause lawyers all over the United States have shaped our last one hundred years and will continue to shape the legal landscape to come.
As Dean F. Michael Higginbotham said in his Keynote Speech at the University of La Verne Law Review Symposium in 2014: "Make no mistake ... there is no better feeling in this life than to know that you have helped to improve the lives of those around you.
As a result of many attorney's desire to participate in public interest law, organizations, such as the ACLU[25] and NAACP,[26] were formed to develop a collaborative approach to addressing these societal problems.
"[27] Looking at the role of public interest law groups, Laura Beth Nielsen and Catherine Albiston defined public interest law groups as "organizations in the voluntary sector that employ at least one lawyer at least part time, and whose activities (1) seek to produce significant benefits for those who are external to the organization's participants, and (2) involve at least one adjudicatory strategy.
When partisan public interest organizations first gained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s it was the liberal groups that bound together to promote significant social change.
[33] Because of this expansion in services offered, these groups began employing lawyers to create more lasting substantive change through legal reform.
Public interest groups on both sides of the aisle have expanded their roles tremendously and can even be attributed to the divisive political arena that exist today.
Community economic development work includes building coalitions of interested parties to create social policies that improve affordable housing opportunities, increases access to affordable financing options, develops workforce skills, and generally produces more economic production within suffering urban and rural communities.
[36] In order to serve their client, CED lawyers are required to be proficient in many areas of the law which include: business, finance, environmental studies, real estate, architecture, public policy, education, employment and human resources, community organizing, organizational development, and change theory among other subjects.
In response, the Federal government created focused programs that targeted disadvantaged communities by providing increased education, job training, and family services.
Beginning with the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, both state and federal governments began to reinvest in struggling urban and rural communities through the creation of Enterprise Zones.
According to these studies, the underlying conditions needed to improve an economic zones chances of success are: low unemployment, high levels of investment and suburbs.
[40] According to Audrey G. McFarlane, CED lawyering efforts have fallen short of their intended goals of building economic development within a community.
First, the structure of the economic stimulus has been designed to benefit large corporations that generally do not require high paying jobs.
Finally, simply providing a job does not address the entire problem facing a community and should include housing programs, workforce development, and food security among other things.
[42] For example, there are legal advocacy organizations for a wide range of causes such as environmentalism, racial justice, feminism, Evangelical Christianity, consumers, the poor, and civil liberties.
Spearheaded by lawyer and future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall, the NAACP used planned litigation to reverse the "separate but equal" doctrine in Brown v. Board of Education.
[citation needed] In 2004, Joel F. Handler conducted research that focused on how public interest law firms have changed over time.
Handler found that since 1975, the historically liberal public interest topics have, for the most part, experienced a decline in the percent of effort expended.
[48] In response, the Chinese government has attempted to silence the cause lawyers by limiting their efficacy through "law based" restrictions and "extra-legal" measures.
[49] According to the Leitner Center, the Chinese Communist Party has been instrumental in passing laws that limit Chinese lawyers ability to effectively practice law by restricting access to clients, charging registration fees and coercing lawyers to drop unpopular cases in exchange for more favorable licensing treatment.
[51] They have formed cause lawyering organization especially to protect the human rights of asylum seekers[52] and temporary migrant workers in the Technical Intern Training Program.
