Cause lawyering for American Indian voting rights: comparing public and private attorneys

Abstract

The study of cause lawyers has focused heavily on the private sector, but both public and private attorneys bring voting rights litigation. This chapter first situates voting rights litigation within cause lawyering, as described by Scheingold and Sarat. It then suggests criteria for analyzing cause lawyering across public and private sectors and applies them to the attorneys who have done the majority of voting rights litigation for American Indians: The Voting Section of the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and the Voting Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union. The chapter suggests that the public and private attorneys are more similar than one might expect in their motivation, relationship to clients, and range of political strategies used. Their organizational practice sites differ greatly, but the dynamics of the public practice site confirm that Voting Section attorneys are cause lawyers.

Citation

Olson, S.M. (2010), "Cause lawyering for American Indian voting rights: comparing public and private attorneys", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Studies in Law, Politics and Society (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 53), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 137-162. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1059-4337(2010)0000053009