To Lead with Law: Reassessing the Influence of Legal Advocacy Organizations in Social Movements


In her article Sandra Levensky discusses how legal advocacy organizations operate in social movements, particularly how they interact with other activist organizations. She argues that "many activists in the movement perceive legal advocacy organizations as operating independently from the rest of the movement, imposing their agendas without consultation with grassroots activists." Pg.2. She examines these interactions through analysis of GLBT legal advocacy organizations relationships to other social movement organizations. Interestingly the primary things other organizations value about "social change" litigation is not the litigation outcomes, rather "the publicity associated with the litigation." Pg. 10. 10. Perhaps, this puts legal advocacy organizations a bit on the outside of other forms of public activism, but also gives them an additional tie into potential hashtag activism.

You can find here paper here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.630.9111&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Levensky, Sandra R. To Lead with Law: Reassessing the Influence of Legal Advocacy Organizations in Social Movements. 2005, citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.630.9111&rep=rep1&type=pdf.

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