Lawyers
for Conservative Causes:
Clients, Ideology, and Social Distance
John
P. Heinz, Anthony Paik, and Ann Southworth
Abstract
Scholars have devoted attention to “cause lawyers”
on the political Left, but relatively little to lawyers who work
on the conservative side of the American political spectrum. This
paper presents data on the characteristics of and relationships
among lawyers affiliated with organizations active on a set of 17
conservative issues. We find that the lawyers serve separate and
distinct constituencies — business conserva-tives, Christian
conservatives, libertarians, abortion opponents, etc. — and
that the attributes of the lawyers serving these constituencies
differ significantly. The greatest social separation occurs between
the business interests and the abortion opponents, with another
clear separation between libertarians and the organizations devoted
to traditional family values and order maintenance. These divisions
appear to reflect the difference between “insider politics”
and “populism,” which is manifested in part in actual
geographic separation between lawyers located in the District of
Columbia and those in the South, West, and Midwest. In the center
of the network, however, we find some potential “mediators”
— prominent lawyers who may facilitate communication and coordination
among the several constituencies. These lawyers and the organizations
they serve attempt to bridge the constituencies concerned with morality,
market freedom, and individual liberty, and they convene meetings
of diverse sets of lawyers and organizational leaders to seek consensus
on policy goals. Nonetheless, the findings indicate that most organizations
are seldom active on issues that lie beyond the relatively narrow
boundaries of their own interests. When fundamental interests conflict,
lawyers appear unlikely to overcome the divisions among their clients.
John P. Heinz, School
of Law, Northwestern University
Anthony Paik, Department of Sociology, University
of Chicago
Ann Southworth, Case Western Reserve University
School of Law
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