Traditionally, poverty lawyers, criminal defenders, and clinical teachers have overlooked John Hart Ely's theory of judicial review in teaching the lawyering process and in representing impoverished clients and their communities. But the egalitarian themes of Ely's work on judicial review, reflected in his early contribution to Gideon v. Wainwright and his service as a public defender, resonate deeply with the practice of lawyering for the poor and the disenfranchised. Indeed, Ely saw the good lawyer as mindful of racially motivated inequality and unequal access in both law and politics. Nonetheless, situated within the advocacy traditions of liberal legalism, his vision of lawyering defined race consciousness and racial equality narrowly, eschewing the notion of race-contingent identity and community as dignity-based process values linked to cultural, social, and political standing. Although constrained by legal process considerations of lawyer role, institutional function, and political legitimacy, Ely's defense of minority equality rights and political access norms can be read to extend the reach of liberal lawyering by supporting antisubordination axioms of democratic empowerment and minority collaboration. Ely's fusion of democracy and equality in legal process bridges constitutional theory and clinical practice to offer an enriching vision of progressive lawyering in impoverished, crime-ridden communities.
