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Full-Text Articles in Law and Race
Community Responsive Public Defense, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour
Community Responsive Public Defense, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour
Fordham Law Review
This colloquium asks us to consider how social change is influencing the legal profession and the legal profession’s response. This Essay applies these questions to organizing around criminal injustice and the response from public defenders. This Essay surfaces the work of four innovative indigent defense organizations that are engaged with and duty-bound to the communities they represent. I call this “community responsive public defense,” which is a distinct model of indigent defense whereby public defenders look to their clients and their clients’ communities to help shape advocacy, strategy, and representation.
Methodologically, this Essay relies primarily on qualitative interviews with leaders …
(How) Can Litigation Advance Multiracial Democracy?, Olatunde C.A. Johnson
(How) Can Litigation Advance Multiracial Democracy?, Olatunde C.A. Johnson
Fordham Law Review
Can rights litigation meaningfully advance social change in this moment? Many progressive or social justice legal scholars, lawyers, and advocates would argue “no.” Constitutional decisions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court thwart the aims of progressive social movements. Further, contemporary social movements often decenter courts as a primary domain of social change. In addition, a new wave of legal commentary urges progressives to de-emphasize courts and constitutionalism, not simply tactically but as a matter of democratic survival.
This Essay considers the continuing role of rights litigation, using the litigation over race-conscious affirmative action as an illustration. Courts are a key …