Up Against the Law - (Justice, Power, and Politics) by Luca Falciola (Paperback)

About the Book

"As protest movements took to the streets during the 1960s and 1970s, a group of lawyers joined forces with America's most confrontational activists. In pursuit of radical change themselves, these militant attorneys went beyond providing mere representation. They identified with their clients, defied the habits of a conservative profession, and formulated a corrosive critique of the legal system, questioning the neutrality and transformative power of law. While exploiting the courtrooms as political forums, they developed aggressive litigation strategies and became involved with the organization of protest. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews, historian Luca Falciola reconstructs this largely unmapped phenomenon and challenges the reader to think anew about the pivotal role of lawyers in social movements"--

Book Synopsis

As protest movements took to the streets during the 1960s and 1970s, a group of lawyers joined forces with America's most confrontational activists. In pursuit of radical change themselves, these militant attorneys went beyond providing mere representation. They identified with their clients, defied the habits of a conservative profession, and formulated a corrosive critique of the legal system, questioning the neutrality and transformative power of law. While exploiting the courtrooms as political forums, they developed aggressive litigation strategies and became involved with the organization of protest. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews, historian Luca Falciola reconstructs this largely unmapped phenomenon and challenges the reader to think anew about the pivotal role of lawyers in social movements.

At the heart of this book is the story of the National Lawyers Guild. Founded in 1937, the Guild represented the first integrated and progressive bar association of America. The Guild returned to prominence in the early 1960s, at the vanguard providing legal aid to civil rights workers in the South. Since then, leftist students, disobedient soldiers, rebellious inmates, radical minorities, and revolutionary groups such as the Black Panther Party and the Weather Underground have relied on this cadre of sympathetic lawyers to defend and empower them.

Review Quotes

"An eminently readable book, which should find a place in the library of anyone interested in American Studies. . . . [A] rare gem in the literature on social movements in the Long Sixties."--Gerd-Rainer Horn, Histoire@Politique

"Detailed and . . . scholarly . . . this book gets the lawyer-reader to think about the relationship between our own political views and our strategy in representing both peaceful and radical protestors."--The Champion, Journal of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

"Elegantly written. . . . [A] welcome addition to the field which focuses on the tensions implicit in being a radical partisan lawyer using the legal system whilst also rejecting it."--Linda Mulcahy, Frontiers of Socio-Legal Studies

"Exceptionally thorough. . . . A masterful account of radical lawyers' involvement in the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s."--Dalia Fuleihan, National Lawyers Guild Review

"This book is valuable for understanding the progress of revolutionary movements in the United States from the late 1960s through the late 1970s--from civil rights protest to virtual anarchy, from movements with well-conceived philosophical underpinnings and deep roots in American history to sects fueled by rage and cavalier rejection of civil society. . . . [H]ighly recommended for students of history, law, and politics."--Journal of American History