Scott L. Cummings – författare

An Equal Place is a monumental study of the role of lawyers in the movement to challenge economic inequality in one of America's most unequal cities: Los Angeles. Breaking with the traditional focus on national civil rights history, the book turns to the stories of contemporary lawyers, on the front lines and behind the scenes, who use law to reshape the meaning of low-wage work in the local economy.Covering a transformative period of L.A. history, from the 1992 riots to the 2008 recession, Scott Cummings presents an unflinching account of five pivotal campaigns in which lawyers ally with local movements to challenge the abuses of garment sweatshops, the criminalization of day labor, the gentrification of downtown retail, the incursion of Wal-Mart groceries, and the misclassification of port truck drivers.Through these campaigns, lawyers and activists define the city as a space for redefining work in vital industries transformed by deindustrialization, outsourcing, and immigration. Organizing arises outside of traditional labor law, powered by community-labor and racial justice groups using levers of local government to ultimately change the nature of labor law itself. Cummings shows that sophisticated legal strategy — engaging yet extending beyond courts, in which lawyers are equal partners in social movements — is an indispensable part of the effort to make L.A. a more equal place. Challenging accounts of lawyers' negative impact on movements, Cummings argues that the L.A. campaigns have achieved meaningful reform, while strengthening the position of workers in local politics, through legal innovation. Dissecting the reasons for failure alongside the conditions for success, this groundbreaking book illuminates the crucial role of lawyers in forging a new model of city-building for the twenty-first century.

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.

This book is about the role of lawyers in constructing a just society. Its central objective is to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between lawyers' commercial aims and public aspirations. Drawing on interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives, it explores whether lawyers can transcend self-interest to meaningfully contribute to systems of political accountability, ethical advocacy and distributional fairness. Its contributors, some of the world's leading scholars of the legal profession, offer evidence that although justice is possible, it is never complete. Ultimately, how much - and what type of - justice prevails depends on how lawyers respond to, and reshape, the political and economic conditions in which they practise. As the essays demonstrate, the possibility of justice is diminished as lawyers pursue self-regulation in the service of power; it is enhanced when lawyers mobilize - in the political arena, workplace and law school - to contest it.

This book is about the role of lawyers in constructing a just society. Its central objective is to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between lawyers' commercial aims and public aspirations. Drawing on interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives, it explores whether lawyers can transcend self-interest to meaningfully contribute to systems of political accountability, ethical advocacy and distributional fairness. Its contributors, some of the world's leading scholars of the legal profession, offer evidence that although justice is possible, it is never complete. Ultimately, how much - and what type of - justice prevails depends on how lawyers respond to, and reshape, the political and economic conditions in which they practise. As the essays demonstrate, the possibility of justice is diminished as lawyers pursue self-regulation in the service of power; it is enhanced when lawyers mobilize - in the political arena, workplace and law school - to contest it.

The principle and practice of pro bono, or volunteer legal services for the poor and other marginalized groups, is an increasingly important feature of justice systems around the world. Pro bono initiatives now exist in more than eighty countries – including Colombia, Portugal, Nigeria, and Singapore – and the list keeps growing. Covering the spread of pro bono across five continents, this book provides a unique data set permitting the first-ever comparative analysis of pro bono's growing role in the access to justice movement. The contributors are leading experts from around the world, whose chapters examine both the internal roots of and global influences on pro bono in transnational context. Global Pro Bono explores the dramatically expanding geographical and political reach of pro bono: documenting its essential contribution to bringing more justice to those on the margins, while underscoring its complex and contested meaning in different parts of the world.

The principle and practice of pro bono, or volunteer legal services for the poor and other marginalized groups, is an increasingly important feature of justice systems around the world. Pro bono initiatives now exist in more than eighty countries - including Colombia, Portugal, Nigeria, and Singapore - and the list keeps growing. Covering the spread of pro bono across five continents, this book provides a unique data set permitting the first-ever comparative analysis of pro bono's growing role in the access to justice movement. The contributors are leading experts from around the world, whose chapters examine both the internal roots of and global influences on pro bono in transnational context. Global Pro Bono explores the dramatically expanding geographical and political reach of pro bono: documenting its essential contribution to bringing more justice to those on the margins, while underscoring its complex and contested meaning in different parts of the world.