Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T07:29:24.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Representing Homeless Families: Repeat Player Implementation Strategies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Beth Harris
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The leverage provided by litigation depends on its strategic combination with inputs at other levels. The question then is whether the organization of the profession permits lawyers to develop and employ skills at these other levels. (Galanter 1974:151)

Without any ability to pose a credible political threat, poverty lawyers have become adept at squeezing resources out of hostile agencies and legislative bodies at all levels of government. (Diller 1995:1427)

In mounting reform suits, Legal Services lawyers are not properly understood as autonomous, outside agents attempting to impose rationality on the administration of public welfare services over the opposition of a universally hostile state. (Katz 1984:189)

In 1974, Marc Galanter examined the strategic role of public interest lawyers in helping the “have nots” come out ahead in the legal system. Galanter argued that, to become agents for social change, lawyers must recognize that their role as advocates extends beyond the courtroom into the implementation process (Galanter 1974:151). This article analyzes the efforts of one group of public interest lawyers—those working in Legal Services agencies dedicated to law reform—to influence the implementation of redistributive programs for a particular group of “have nots”: homeless families or those on the brink of losing their housing. Based on my studies, I argue that by skillfully combining adversarial legal tactics with collaboration, poverty lawyers can transform judicial decisions into “symbolic resources” to leverage the implementation of redistributive remedies. When the reform lawyers have the authority to participate in the process of administrative rule making during the implementation process, they can reshape the norms and organizational infrastructures within state agencies.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 33 , Issue 4: Do the “Haves” Still Come Out Ahead? , 1999 , pp. 911 - 939
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Law and Society Association

Footnotes

I am grateful that the Institute of Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School invited me to participate in the “Do the ‘Haves’ Still Come Out Ahead?” Conference (1998), which provided a fertile environment for the development of this article. I thank Michael McCann, Susan Silbey, Herbert Kritzer, and the anonymous readers for their editing guidance. I continue to appreciate those advocates, organizers, and activists who are supporting efforts of the “have nots” to resist the “mobilization of bias” against them in every venue and at each stage of the political process.

References

References

Auditor General of California (1990) Report by the Auditor General of California: Improvements Are Needed in the State's Program to Provide Assistance to Homeless Families. Sacramento: California State Auditor.Google Scholar
Beyle, Thad (1992) Governors and Hard Times. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly.Google Scholar
Brodkin, Evelyn Z. (1986) The False Promise of Administrative Reform: Implementing Quality Control in Welfare. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Cahn, Edgar S., & Cahn, Jean C. (1964) “The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective,” 73 Yale Law J. 1316–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
California Homeless and Housing Coalition (1991) Facts and Myths about the AFDC Homeless Assistance Program. Los Angeles: California Homeless and Housing Coalition.Google Scholar
Carlin, Jerome E., Howard, Jan, & Messinger, Sheldon L. (1966) “Civil Justice and the Poor: Issues for Sociological Research,” 1 Law & Society Rev. 9–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Children's Defense Fund (1994) The State of America's Children Yearbook. Washington, DC: Children's Defense Fund.Google Scholar
Davis, Martha (1995) Brutal Need: Lawyers and the Welfare Rights Movement, 1960–1973. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Delgado, Richard, Dunn, Chris, Brown, Pamela, Lee, Helena, & Hubbert, David (1985) “Fairness and Formality: Minimizing the Risk of Prejudice in Alternative Dispute Resolution,” 6 Wisconsin Law Rev. 1359–1404.Google Scholar
Diller, Matthew (1995) “Poverty Lawyering in the Golden Age,” 93 Michigan Law Rev. 1401–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ellis, Virginia (1991) “The Governor's Budget Proposal; Lower Benefits Linked to Shift in Philosophy; Welfare: Governor Says Recipients, Mostly Single Mothers, Don't Have Enough Incentive to Get Off Programs. Critics Believe the Ranks of the Homeless Will Swell,” Los Angeles Times, 11 Jan., p. A3.Google Scholar
Fabricant, Michael B., & Burghardt, Steve (1992) The Welfare State Crisis and the Transformation of Social Work. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Inc.Google Scholar
Feeley, Malcolm (1986) “Bench Trials, Adversariness, and Plea Bargaining: A Comment of Schulhofer's Plan,” 14 New York Univ. Rev. of Law & Social Change, 173–78.Google Scholar
Galanter, Mark (1974) “Why the ‘Haves’ Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change,” 9 Law & Society Rev. 95–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Galanter, Mark (1983) “The Radiating Effects of Courts,” in Boyum, K. O. and Mather, L., eds., Empirical Theories about Courts. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Garth, Bryant G. (1992) “Power and Legal Artifice: The Federal Class Action,” 26 Law & Society Rev. 237–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Handler, Joel F. (1966) “Controlling Official Behavior in Welfare Administration,” 54 California Law Rev. 479–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Handler, Joel F. (1978) Social Movements and the Legal System: A Theory of Law Reform and Social Change. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Handler, Joel F. (1990) Law and the Search for Community. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Handler, Joel F. (1996) Down from Bureaucracy: The Ambiguity of Privatization and Empowerment. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Handler, Joel F., & Sosin, Michael (1983) Last Resorts: Emergency Assistance and Special Needs Programs in Public Welfare. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Heimer, Carol A. (1996) “Explaining Variation in the Impact of Law: Organizations, Institutions, and Professions.” 15 Studies in Law, Politics, & Society 29–59.Google Scholar
Houseman, Alan W. (1991) “Poverty Law: Past and Future,” in Lardent, E. F., ed., Civil Justice: An Agenda for the 1990s. New Orleans: American Bar Association.Google Scholar
Kagan, Robert A. (1991) “Adversarial Legalism and American Government,” 10 J. of Policy Analysis & Management, 369–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, Jack (1984) Poor People's Lawyers in Transition. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lawrence, Susan E. (1990) The Poor in Court: The Legal Services Program and Supreme Court Decision Making. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, Jethro K. (1981) The Litigious Society. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lipsky, Michael (1968) “Protest as a Political Resource,” 62 American Political Science Rev. 1144–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCann, Michael W. (1992) “Reform Litigation on Trial,” 17 Law & Social Inquiry 715–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCann, Michael W. (1994) Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago.Google Scholar
McCann, Michael W. (1999) “How the Supreme Court Matters in American Politics: New Institutional Perspectives,” in Clayton, C. & Gillman, H., eds., The Supreme Court and American Politics: New Institutionalist Approaches. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Melnick, R. Shep (1983) Regulation and the Courts: The Case of the Clean Air Act. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Melnick, R. Shep (1994a) “Administrative Law and Bureaucratic Reality,” in Sargentich, T. O., ed., Administrative Law Anthology. Cincinnati: Anderson Publishing.Google Scholar
Melnick, R. Shep (1994b) Between the Lines: Interpreting Welfare Rights. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Murphy, Kim (1986) “State is Ordered to Revise Welfare Rule,” Los Angeles Times, 2 Aug., Home Ed., sec. 2, p. 1.Google Scholar
National Housing Law Project (1992) Annotated Docket of Selected Cases and Other Materials Involving Homelessness. Working Draft. Washington DC: National Housing Law Project.Google Scholar
Novak, Tim (1995) “DCFS Chief Hits Senate Stall on his Appointment,” Chicago Sun-Times, 1 June, p. 16.Google Scholar
Pearson, Rick (1992) “State Starts Sending Pink Slips to Public Aid, DCFS Workers,” Chicago Tribune, 11 Aug., p. Chicagoland 2.Google Scholar
Ramos, George (1986) “State Ordered to Provide Aid to Homeless Families,” Los Angeles Times, 13 May, sec. 1, p. 1.Google Scholar
Roisman, Florence (1991) Establishing a Right to Housing: An Advocate's Guide. Washington, DC: National Support Center for Low Income Housing.Google Scholar
Schattschneider, E. E. (1983) The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America. Fort Worth, TX: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart A. (1974) The Politics of Rights: Lawyers, Public Policy, and Political Change. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Martin (1988) Who Guards the Guardians? Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press.Google Scholar
Sparer, Edward V. (1965) “Role of the Welfare Client's Lawyer,” 12 UCLA Law Rev. 361–80.Google Scholar
Stumpf, Harry P. (1975) Community Politics and Legal Services: The Other Side of the Law. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Vorenberg, Elizabeth (1993) “Child Services Can Tear Families Apart,” New York Times, 28 June, p. A16.Google Scholar
Wise, Daniel (1997) “Rent Aid to Welfare Recipients Continued Under Interim Orders,” New York Law J., 9 May, pp. 1, 4.Google Scholar
Hansen v. McMahon, File No. CA 000974Google Scholar
Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles (1986) “Class Action Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief and Petition for Writ of Mandate” (April 17).Google Scholar
Court of Appeal of the State of California, Second Appellate District, Division 6 (1987) “Opinion,” by Judge J. Abbe, 1 July.Google Scholar
Jiggetts v. Grinker, File No. 40582/97Google Scholar
Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York (1991) “Plaintiffs' Proposed Findings of Fact,” 4 Dec.Google Scholar
Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York (1988) “Order,” by Judge K. Moscowitz, 12 Jan.Google Scholar
Norman v. Johnson, File No. 89 C 1624Google Scholar
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division (1990) “Memorandum Opinion and Order,” by Judge W. T. Hart, 18 May.Google Scholar
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division (1991) “Consent Order,” 28 March.Google Scholar
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division (1995) “Agreed Order,” by Judge W. T. Hart, 27 Feb.Google Scholar
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division (1996a) “Motion for (1) Continued Monitoring and/or (2) Declaratory and Injunctive Relief Redressing Substantial Non-Compliance with the Consent Decrees and the Court Order of March 10, 1996,” 7 Feb.Google Scholar
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division (1996b) “Defendant's Memorandum in Opposition to Plaintiffs' Motion for Continued Monitoring and/or Declaratory and Injunctive Relief,” 26 Feb.Google Scholar
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division (1996c) “Memorandum Opinion and Order,” by Judge W. T. Hart, 11 April.Google Scholar
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division (1996d.) “Seventh Monitoring Report,” 3 June.Google Scholar

Hansen v. McMahon

Berlin, Nancy (1996.) Director of the California Homeless and Housing Coalition. Interview by author. Los Angeles, 14 Oct.Google Scholar
Bird, Melinda (1996) Attorney, formerly with Western Center on Law and Poverty, Los Angeles. Interview by author. Los Angeles, 17 Oct.Google Scholar
Farber, Jeffrey (1996) Social worker, Los Angeles. Family Housing. Interview by author. Los Angeles, 14 Oct.Google Scholar
McKeever, Casey (1996) Legislative advocate with Western Center on Law and Poverty, Sacramento. Phone interview, 7 Oct.Google Scholar
Newman, Robert (1996) Attorney with Western Center on Law and Poverty. Interview by author. Los Angeles, 16 Oct.Google Scholar

Jiggetts v. Grinker

Bahn, Susan (1997) Attorney, Legal Aid Society, New York City. Interview by author. New York City, 25 June.Google Scholar
Diller, Matthew (1996) Attorney, formerly with Legal Aid Society, New York City. Interview by author. New York City, 10 July.Google Scholar
Malin, Joan (1997) Former Commissioner for Homeless Administration, New York City. Interview by author. New York City, 25 June.Google Scholar
Morawetz, Nancy (1997) Attorney, formerly with Legal Aid Society, New York City. Interview by author. New York City, 1 July.Google Scholar
Nortz, Shelley (1997) Director for State Policy, Coalition for the Homeless, Albany. Phone interview, 12 June.Google Scholar

Norman v. Johnson

Cheney-Egin, John (1996) Housing specialist and divisional Norman liaison for the Office of Litigation Management, Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Interview by author. Chicago, 17 July.Google Scholar
Heybach, Laurene (1996) Attorney, Legal Aid Foundation of Chicago. Interview by author. Chicago, 19 July.Google Scholar
Redleaf, Diane (1996) Attorney, formerly with Legal Aid Foundation of Chicago. Phone interview, 18 July.Google Scholar
Shaw, Barbara (1996) Executive Director, Illinois Council for the Prevention of Violence. Interview by author. Chicago, 23 July.Google Scholar
Smith, Jeanine (1996) Monitor, Norman Consent Decree. Interview by author. Chicago, 18 July.Google Scholar
Tchen, Christina (1996) Attorney, Partner in Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, legal counsel for the Department of Children and Family Services. Interview by author. Chicago, 25 July.Google Scholar