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Lawyers and Political Careers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Michael Cohen
Michael Cohen*
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
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That the legal profession is not monolithic, but consists of a group of specialties, is well-known. In this respect, the legal profession's structure is similar to that of other professions that have been studied. The structural conditions conducive to the growth of specialties arise from the inability of any individual to master all the techniques and knowledge of a complex occupation. In law, the specialties are usually organized around a field of legal doctrine, such as probate; tasks, such as litigation and legal research; or client relationships, such as house counsel and government lawyers. A given law practice or career, of course, may and typically does include more than one specialty. Public office-holding is another prominent part of the work that lawyers do, but it has so far hardly been taken into account by the legal profession as part of its work. Indeed, many discussions of lawyers' work barely mention their involvement in politics, except for offhand references. Yet the evidence shows that public office-holding figures importantly in the lawyer's world of work. Even beyond occasional office-holding, evidence to be cited in this paper suggests that for some lawyers public office-holding takes on some characteristics of a career, perhaps amounting to another specialty within law. Admittedly, the uncertainties and risks of public office mean that few men who go into politics give up their other means of livelihood entirely. Yet some men become sufficiently involved in public office-holding for both them and observers to think of it in career terms.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , May 1969 , pp. 563 - 574
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 by the Law and Society Association.

References

1. Q. Johnstone & D. Hopson, Jr., Lawyers and Their Work 33 (1967).

2. R. Bucher, Pathology: A Study of Social Movements Within a Profession, 10 Social Problems 40-51 (1962); M. Cohen, Private Practice in Social Work, 14 Social Problems 84-93 (1966).

3. E. C. Hughes, Men and Their Work 117-18 (1958).

4. Johnstone & Hopson, supra note 1, at 138-40.

5. J. Carlin, Lawyers on Their Own (1962).

6. Public office-holding here refers to both elective and appointive offices.

7. Johnstone & Hopson, supra note 1, at 23; and M. Mayer, The Lawyers 12 (1966).

8. H. Eulau & J. D. Sprague, Lawyers in Politics 11-12 (1964).

9. Hughes, supra note 3, at 129.

10. Id. at 6.

11. S. M. Lipset, M. Trow, & J. Coleman, Union Democracy 251 (1962).

12. W. S. Sayre & H. Kaufman, Governing New York City 522-54 (1960).

13. Id. at 534.

14. Id.

15. Id. at 532.

16. Id. at 530.

17. D. R. Matthews, U.S. Senators and Their World (1960).

18. Id. at 63.

19. C. A. M. Ewing, Southern Governors, 10 J. Pol. 385-409 (1948).

20. Id. at 392-93.

21. J. A. Schlesinger, Lawyers and Politics: A Clarified View, 1 Midwest J. Pol. Sci. 26-39 (1957).

22. Id. at 29.

21 J. Pol. 416 (1959).

23. D. R. Derge, The Lawyer as Decision-Maker in the American State Legislature.

24. Id. at 419.

25. Id.

26. D. R. Derge, The Lawyer in the Indiana General Assembly, 6 Midwest J. Pol. Sci. 19-53 (1962).

27. Id. at 53.

28. M. Cohen, Law and Public Office-Holding, 1966 (Ph.D. thesis).

29. A. P. Blaustein & C. O. Porter, The American Lawyer 98 (1954).

30. M. Weber, Politics as a Vocation, in From Max Weber 77-128 (H. H. Gerth & C. W. Mills eds. 1958).

31. J. G. March & H. Simon, Organizations 103-4 (1958).

32. W. I. Wardwell & A. L. Wood, The Extra-Professional Role of the Lawyer, 61 Am J. Sociology 304-7 (1956).

33. Lipset, Trow, & Coleman, supra note 11.

34. Id. at 93-99.

35. A. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957).

36. J. A. Schlesinger, Ambition and Politics 1-21 (1966).

37. H. S. Becker, Notes on the Concept of Commitment, 66 Am. J. Sociology 32-40 (1960).

38. Sayre & Kaufman, supra note 12, at 535.