Press Release (PDF) - Stanford University Press

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Puja Sangar
Tel: (650) 724-4211
Fax: (650) 736-1784
psangar@stanford.edu
SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN: POLITICS,
PROFESSIONALISM, AND CAUSE
LAWYERING
By Stuart Scheingold and Austin Sarat
“This highly engaging book is both a discriminating study and a rousing defense of what
it unapologetically refers to as ‘cause lawyering.’ Professors Scheingold and Sarat offer
fresh views on how lawyers so often end up isolated from their personal values. They are
especially penetrating in their analysis of the intricate connections between lawyers’ roles
and the ideals of a liberal democracy.”
—Scott Turow, author of Reversible Errors and Ultimate Punishment
“This is a concise, beautifully written, and ground-breaking book that sets forth a new
theoretical roadmap for a diffuse but increasingly important field.”
—Lucie White, Harvard Law School
“This superb new book . . . is a rich synthesis of several decades of research on cause
lawyers and cause lawyering. . . . [It] is a must-read for all scholars and students
interested in cause lawyers and the intersection between law and politics in the U.S.”—
The Law and Politics Book Review
Lawyers in the United States are frequently described as “hired guns,” willing to fight for
any client and advance any interest. Claiming that their own beliefs are irrelevant to their
work, they view lawyering as a technical activity, not a moral or political one.
But there are others, those the authors call cause lawyers, who refuse to put aside their
own convictions while they do their legal work. This “deviant” strain of lawyering is as
significant as it is controversial, both in the legal profession and in the world of politics.
It challenges mainstream ideas of what lawyers should do and of how they should
behave.

Something to Believe In (published in September 2004 by Stanford University Press)
explores the work that cause lawyers do and the role of moral and political commitment
in their practice. It also describes the role of legal education and the organized legal
profession in providing opportunities and imposing constraints on moral and political
advocacy.
In the United States, the relationship between the organized legal profession and cause
lawyering has been ambiguous. After decades of being on the fringes, cause lawyering
has taken a hold since the 1960s. This is due to the work of civil rights and antipoverty
lawyering, and the work of organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the
Environmental Defense Fund, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. The profession
has evolved to accommodate lawyers who construct their practices by targeting clients
whose cases further the causes they believe in.
Today, cause lawyers go by many names, serving many causes—human rights lawyers,
feminist lawyers, civil rights and civil liberties lawyers, environmental lawyers, property
rights lawyers, anti-poverty lawyers. They take different positions and advocate for a
variety of political issues, such as abortion, gun control, prayer in public school, and the
death penalty.
The book examines “the embeddedness of cause lawerying in various institutional
frameworks composed of the organized bar, law schools, practice settings, and the legal
and political agencies of American democracy.” According to the authors, “the place of
cause lawyering depends on its possible contributions to liberal democracy and the
strategic choices cause lawyers make.” It is as advocates for liberal-legal rights, that
cause lawyers occupy a shared terrain with other lawyers in the domestic sphere and,
increasingly, on the global sphere as well.
Biographies
Stuart Scheingold, professor of political science emeritus at the University of
Washington, has done considerable work on the European Community. In recent years
he has focused exclusively on public law, specifically on the politics of crime and
criminal justice and on law, lawyers, and social justice. His most recent publications
include Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities
(Oxford, with Austin Sarat) and Politics, Crime Control and Culture (Ashgate).
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political
Science, Amherst College. His publications include: Dissent in Dangerous Times, The
Place of Law, Law's Madness, and Cultural Studies and Law: Beyond Legal Realism in
Interdisciplinary Legal Scholarship. He has four books forthcoming with the Stanford
University Press: The World Cause Lawyers Make (with Stuart Scheingold), Law on the
Screen, The Cultural Lives of Capital Punishment, and The Limits of Law.