Women and Justice for the Poor: A History of Legal Aid, 1863–1945 (Studies in Legal History) - Softcover

Batlan, Felice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1107446414 ISBN 13: 9781107446410

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2015

Synopsis

This book re-examines fundamental assumptions about the American legal profession and the boundaries between "professional" lawyers, "lay" lawyers, and social workers. Putting legal history and women's history in dialogue, it demonstrates that nineteenth-century women's organizations first offered legal aid to the poor and that middle-class women functioning as lay lawyers, provided such assistance. Felice Batlan illustrates that by the early twentieth century, male lawyers founded their own legal aid societies. These new legal aid lawyers created an imagined history of legal aid and a blueprint for its future in which women played no role and their accomplishments were intentionally omitted. In response, women social workers offered harsh criticisms of legal aid leaders and developed a more robust social work model of legal aid. These different models produced conflicting understandings of expertise, professionalism, the rule of law, and ultimately, the meaning of justice for the poor.

About this title

Book Description:

This book re-examines fundamental assumptions about the American legal profession and the boundaries between "professional" lawyers, "lay" lawyers, and social workers. Putting legal history and women's history in dialogue, it details the history of the origins and development of free legal aid for the poor in the United States.

About the Author:

Felice Batlan is Professor of Law and Associate Dean at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago-Kent College of Law. Her groundbreaking work, which explores interactions between law, gender, history, and the legal profession, has appeared in numerous law reviews, history journals, and anthologies. She is a book review editor for Law and History Review and was an associate editor of the Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court and Continuity and Change. She has served as an New York University Golieb Fellow, a Hurst Fellow, a Freehling Fellow, and received the CCWH/Berkshire Women's History Dissertation Award.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1107446414
• ISBN 13: 9781107446410
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 238