New Book: Corey S. Schdaimah, Negotiating Justice

A new book of interest: Corey S. Schdaimah, Negotiating Justice: Progressive Lawyering, Low-Income Clients, and the Quest for Social Change (2009).  Amazon link here.  Overview below:

While many young people become lawyers for the big bucks, others are motivated by the pursuit of social justice, seeking to help poor and other marginalized people for whom legal services are financially, socially, or politically inaccessible. These progressive lawyers often bring a considerable degree of idealism to their work, and many leave the field due to insurmountable red tape and spiraling disillusionment. But what about those who stay? And what do their clients think? Negotiating Justice explores how progressive lawyers and their clients negotiate the dissonance between personal idealism and the realities of a system that does not often champion the rights of the poor.

Corey S. Shdaimah draws on over fifty interviews with urban legal service lawyers and their clients to provide readers with a compelling behind-the-scenes look at how different notions of practice and the legal system can present significant barriers for both clients and lawyers, and the concessions both often have to make as they navigate the murky and resistant terrains of the legal system and their wider pursuits of justice and power.

-Thanks to Kaaryn Gustafson for the heads up! E.R. erosser@wcl.american.edu.