POLITICAL LESSONS - LEGAL-SERVICES FOR THE POOR

Professor Feldman's article offers a critical analysis of Legal Services work for the poor. He describes shortcomings of the legal work. He believes that randomness pervades Legal Services lawyers' conception of role and legal work. Case loads reflect insufficient concentration on any particular topic or issue. Lawyers for the poor fail to identify effectively the legal problems that beset their clients. Legal Services lawyers subscribe to a dogma that divides legal activity into impact work and service work. Legal efforts result in inadequate solutions to client problems. He offers partial explanations for these shortcomings. Programmatic choices made at the inception of Legal Services did not reflect a theoretical and operational vision of law in relation to the poor and distinctive ways to enhance the potential of legal work to create change. The social psychology-views of law and professional values-of poverty lawyers has further distorted their efficacy. Legal Services lawyers have failed to contest aggressively the destructive exercise of state power in the lives of their clients; they have failed to engage in meaningful and constructive conflict in behalf of the larger interests of the poor. Professor Feldman concludes by suggesting directions and ideas that might be pursued by Legal Services lawyers to enhance the effectiveness of their work.