Disrupting the Cause Lawyering Narrative -- great panel by 3 early career scholars that questions how we should define and understand "cause lawyering" -- #ASLH2019 (thread 1/13)

Alexandra Havrylyshyn begins with a clear, intriguing question - we know that slaves used attorneys to plead their case, but how did they hire and pay for them? 2/13

she traces the lives of 2 attorneys with very different backgrounds and goals, to unpack what motivated them, what social consequences they faced, and what kinds of cases they took on. 3/13

she finds that these antebellum Louisiana attorneys don't fit the idea of a "cause lawyer" - a change agent crusading for justice in an unjust world. They were, first and foremost, advocating on behalf of their clients. 4/13

Myisha Eatmon brings us into the 20th century to complicate another narrative of "cause lawyering," in the NAACP's approach to civil rights litigation. Argues for NAACP in NC as a "networking agent" who often connected those in need to attorneys who could help. 5/13

In this, Eatmon contests the idea that the NAACP "brushed off" anyone whose case wasn't a good "test case" for their broader civil rights agenda. Argues that "local lawyering under tort law was disruptive - even if it didn't pursue a civil rights agenda." 6/13

Last panelist - @labuzamovies - opens with HUAC hearings and the Hollywood blacklist (a very different, but not unrelated, way in to a discussion of rights, liberties) 7/13

I'm still processing Labuza's story - the lawyers here (again, a pair) tried to use ANTITRUST LAW to fight the Hollywood blacklist in the 50s/60s. Former labor litigators w/ rep as "lefty" lawyers. These folks most closely fit the idea of "cause lawyers." 8/13

They argued that the blacklist amounted to collusion among distributors; unintended effect - their expertise (read: nerdiness) on antitrust made them the go-to firm on antitrust in the period. 9/13

But their "causes," again, are a little unclear, and more complicated than they first appear. On the one hand - fighting for rights; on the other - fighting for a free market in entertainment, right to work?? 10/13

// GREAT Q from audience (George Aumoithe) -- Struck by "how much the black body is a site of legal transformation" in these cases, and suggests a connection to contemporary personal injury lawyers 11/13

// This also struck me as I was listening. These cases weren't exactly "jackpot justice" for these lawyers, but there were financial incentives to take these cases that mirror the incentives that promoted the growth of the plaintiff's bar in the 1980s/90s. 12/13

// It seemed like in each instance these were moments of legal transformation and experimentation that came from a progressive or liberal place, but had the potential to turn sour, to turn in on itself to eventually work against those same ends. 13/13