Michael Steven Smith is an attorney, a former board member at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the cohost of the nationally broadcast radio show Law and Disorder. He is the co-author, with Michael Ratner, of Who Killed Che?

From the Introduction

What Is Law?

Though the challenges leftist lawyers face today are great, they are not unprecedented. And we can learn much from radical lawyers of the past. Martin Luther King's courageous attorney William Kunstler and Federal District Judge Jack Weinstein both received awards from the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys in 1994. But each had a very different view of the law. In his acceptance speech, Kunstler said that he thought Judge Weinstein believed that law was "that considered response of a civilized society to the problem of reaching a reasoned conclusion to disputes between the state and its citizens and among the latter themselves. Whatever its shortcomings, they are patently aberrational and remediable". Kunstler believed this was the liberal's view of the law.

Kunstler's own view was different. He said that the law, "in fundamental essence, is nothing more than a method of control created by a socio-economic system determined, at all costs, to perpetuate itself by all and any means necessary, for as long as possible". When asked about democratic rights, Kunstler's friend, the late and deeply respected attorney Leonard Weinglass, said he did not believe, ultimately, that capitalism and democracy were compatible. We are seeing the consequences of this contradiction unfold at an accelerated pace.

Lawyers for the Left take an activist and oppositional, albeit auxiliary, role. We recognize that great movements of the people "from below" are fundamental to social change. And the need to protect our democratic right to speak out, educate, organize, associate, and demonstrate is more crucial than ever, as the Bill of Rights is increasingly threatened. We use our legal training to carve out a space for, defend the legitimacy of, and give legal expression to the fundamentally political movements for social transformation. On a more mundane level, we provide legal services and hence some possibility of justice to individuals who would otherwise have to suffer.

What Can We Learn from Left Lawyers of the '40s and '60s?

Michael Steven Smith is an attorney, a former board member at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the cohost of the nationally broadcast radio show Law and Disorder. He is the co-author, with Michael Ratner, of Who Killed Che?

From the Introduction

What Is Law?

Though the challenges leftist lawyers face today are great, they are not unprecedented. And we can learn much from radical lawyers of the past. Martin Luther King's courageous attorney William Kunstler and Federal District Judge Jack Weinstein both received awards from the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys in 1994. But each had a very different view of the law. In his acceptance speech, Kunstler said that he thought Judge Weinstein believed that law was "that considered response of a civilized society to the problem of reaching a reasoned conclusion to disputes between the state and its citizens and among the latter themselves. Whatever its shortcomings, they are patently aberrational and remediable". Kunstler believed this was the liberal's view of the law.

Kunstler's own view was different. He said that the law, "in fundamental essence, is nothing more than a method of control created by a socio-economic system determined, at all costs, to perpetuate itself by all and any means necessary, for as long as possible". When asked about democratic rights, Kunstler's friend, the late and deeply respected attorney Leonard Weinglass, said he did not believe, ultimately, that capitalism and democracy were compatible. We are seeing the consequences of this contradiction unfold at an accelerated pace.

Lawyers for the Left take an activist and oppositional, albeit auxiliary, role. We recognize that great movements of the people "from below" are fundamental to social change. And the need to protect our democratic right to speak out, educate, organize, associate, and demonstrate is more crucial than ever, as the Bill of Rights is increasingly threatened. We use our legal training to carve out a space for, defend the legitimacy of, and give legal expression to the fundamentally political movements for social transformation. On a more mundane level, we provide legal services and hence some possibility of justice to individuals who would otherwise have to suffer.

What Can We Learn from Left Lawyers of the '40s and '60s?