Mobilizing Law Schools in Response to Poverty: A Report on Experiments in Progress

Abstract

Attention to poverty law, a prominent subject of legal study in the 1960s and early 1970s, faded during the late 1970s and 1980s. Recently, however,there has been a resurgence of interest. Legal scholars are again investigating the subject, applying the insights of critical theory and other developments in legal scholarship since poverty law was last in focus. The Interuniversity Consortium on Poverty Law is one example of the new interest. Created with substantial support from the Ford Foundation, the consortium is a loosely structured group of legal academics (traditional and clinical professors and instructors) from a varied group of law schools working with a wide variety of advocates to accomplish two goals: increasing and improving law school scholarship and teaching about the relationship of the legal system to poor, disadvantaged, or marginalized persons; and increasing linkage of that scholarship and teaching with individuals and organizations directly engaged in service to, and advocacy on behalf of,poor, disadvantaged, or marginalized persons.