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Unequal Justice - Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America (Paperback, New Ed)
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Unequal Justice - Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America (Paperback, New Ed)
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In the course of the 20th century, Auerbach argues, lawyers have
become Brahmins and cowards, dominated by corporate interests,
refusing to initiate redress for injustice to the poor. In addition
to the corporate bureaucracy, it was specialization, anti-Jewish
quotas and American Bar Association conservatism that rendered
lawyers servile; the Depression bankrupted them too, nevertheless.
They failed most egregiously in the McCarthy period, when the few
attorneys willing to defend Communists were pilloried by the
courts, the most dramatic case being that of Sacher and Isserman,
who fought the Smith Act and were disbarred and jailed for their
courage. While Auerbach maintains that patrician Anglo-Saxons have
tended to be most discriminatory toward the poor or those
immediately in need of legal assistance, lawyers of Jewish,
working-class or black origin also have less than sterling records.
Auerbach considers Watergate a low point of demoralization after
the civil rights movement and OEO programs of the '60's had
injected a certain elan into the profession. The intervals -
including the 1930's and the 1960's - when social groundswells gave
lawyers some spirit of social responsibility are reconstructed
anecdotally, with attention to the changing climate of law schools
and pressures at the bench. Auerbach ends by calling for "public
regulation of the legal profession in the public interest," so that
provision of legal services depends on "need, not wealth." Along
with a certain subtle cynicism that assumes the poor will always be
poor, but deserve full rights, the book provides straightforward
access to the safe retreats of the majority of the legal profession
and the accomplishments of a few of its members. Auerbach directs
American studies at Wellesley College. (Kirkus Reviews)
This work focuses on the elite nature of the profession, with its
emphasis on serving business interests and its attempt to exclude
participation by minorities.
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