Movement Lawyering: How Legal Advocacy Can and Should Connect with Grassroots Organizing

By showcasing domestic and international models, this workshop will explore how legal advocacy can support movements for change. The objective is to highlight how lawyers and organizers can work together within grassroots movements to build and support power and leadership development in communities. Panelists will be both lawyers and organizers with experience in a campaign that had a component of movement lawyering. They will share perspectives ranging from a neighborhood-based campaign (such as fighting the gentrification of an African-American neighborhood in one city) to what it means to conduct legal advocacy for more sweeping change (such as in the post-Katrina context or the fight for self-determination in Palestine). Panelists will provide both the visionary elements and practical tools that make movement lawyering successful and powerful from both the organizer and lawyer’s perspectives.

Participants will have the opportunity to share the benefits and pitfalls of organizers and lawyers working together. They will break out into small groups to discuss how we can promote legal advocacy that join rather than lead movements.