Overview
An innovative approach for understanding how law matters in contemporary social movements that rise to meet the twin challenges of American democracy: promoting liberal values of equality and inclusion, while fortifying the rule of law itself. Fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement, America confronts a new democratic reckoning. What role do-and should-lawyers play in strengthening collective action at this pivotal moment? In Lawyers and Movements, Scott L. Cummings offers an innovative answer to this age-old question, breaking from the legacy of legal liberalism to reveal the essential, yet underappreciated, work of lawyers in social struggle-redefining legal mobilization in transformative times. Building from a sweeping analysis of progressive legal theory and practice, Cummings challenges foundational critiques of lawyers as inaccurate and ill-suited to the current context. In response, he advances a new theory of legal mobilization in which control over law is at the heart of movements rising to meet the twin challenges of contemporary liberalism: promoting inclusion and equity, while fortifying democratic institutions. A call to radically rethink how lawyers contribute to progressive change, Lawyers and Movements asserts a timely challenge to democracy in crisis.
Full Product Details
Author: Scott L. Cummings (Robert Henigson Professor of Legal Ethics and Professor of Law, Robert Henigson Professor of Legal Ethics and Professor of Law, UCLA Law)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
ISBN: 9780197556603
ISBN 10: 0197556604
Pages: 456
Publication Date: 08 January 2026
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
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Reviews
A sweeping and critical engagement with the legal, political science, and sociology literatures on social movements and law, Lawyers and Movements reveals the synergies and disconnects among theories of law and social change. Scott Cummings develops a new theoretical framework that spans several institutional contexts to offer a richer account of how lawyers participate in social movements. -Catherine Albiston, University of California, Berkeley Scott Cummings has written a pathbreaking book on the changing roles of lawyers in social movement struggles. The author develops an 'integrated' macro-theory to match the organizationally, tactically, and institutionally 'integrated' activist lawyering practices in the post-Brown civil rights era. His analysis is remarkably erudite, analytically sophisticated, historically astute, empirically grounded, and highly original. The book is mandatory reading for anyone interested in contemporary lawyering for progressive social change. -Michael McCann, University of Washington While legal strategies are certainly important for social movements, mainstream research in the field has rarely addressed in depth their modes of interventions and the legal theorization as well as the practices behind them. This precious book offers a very rich, systematic and innovative approach to lawyers' roles in social movement advocacy, locating them within transformations in the political economy as well as the development of the profession. -Donatella della Porta, Scuola Normale Superiore
A sweeping and critical engagement with the legal, political science, and sociology literatures on social movements and law, Lawyers and Movements reveals the synergies and disconnects among theories of law and social change. Scott Cummings develops a new theoretical framework that spans several institutional contexts to offer a richer account of how lawyers participate in social movements."" -Catherine Albiston, University of California, Berkeley Scott Cummings has written a pathbreaking book on the changing roles of lawyers in social movement struggles. Cummings develops an 'integrated' macro-theory to match the organizationally, tactically, and institutionally 'integrated' activist lawyering practices in the post-Brown civil rights era. His analysis is remarkably erudite, analytically sophisticated, historically astute, empirically grounded, and highly original. The book is mandatory reading for anyone interested in contemporary lawyering for progressive social change."" -Michael McCann, University of Washington While legal strategies are certainly important for social movements, mainstream research in the field has rarely addressed in depth their modes of interventions and the legal theorization as well as the practices behind them. This precious book offers a very rich, systematic and innovative approach to lawyers' roles in social movement advocacy, locating them within transformations in the political economy as well as the development of the profession."" -Donatella della Porta, Scuola Normale Superiore
Author Information
Scott L. Cummings is the Robert Henigson Professor of Legal Ethics and Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. He is faculty director of the Program on Legal Ethics and the Profession, and a longtime member of the Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy.
