LAWS3345 · Law

Movement Lawyering

Boston College Law School

This is a course about the complex relationship between lawyers, social movements, and social and legal change. We are living through a moment of instability and possibility where legal norms are eroding and transforming all around us. As lawyers (or at least soon-to-be lawyers) we are faced with the question of what roles we should or can play either in upholding, challenging, or remaking the systems that we operate within. This course offers an opportunity to reflect on this question by thinking deeply and critically about how and whether lawyers can play a role in social movements. While we will be reading and studying together as a class, we'll also be interacting with (and reading alongside) law students and lawyers from around the country. Students in the course will have the chance to learn from and question practicing lawyers. In addition to the traditional modes of engagement (reading and writing), students will have the chance to lead class meetings, do individualized field research in their areas of interest, and engage with law students from around the country.