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Focusing on the Supreme Court as an integral part of the policy-making process, Susan Lawrence examines how a change in who has access to the Court, and the nature of the institutions that structure that access, has affected its agenda setting and doctrinal development. In her analysis of cases sponsored by the Legal Services Program (LSP) before the Supreme Court during the 1966 through 1974 terms, she explores the effect of this agency in creating a voice for the poor in the judicial policy-making process. The Court's response to cases presented by the LSP--as exemplified in its decisions to invalidate residency requirements for welfare recipients (Shapiro v. Thompson, 1969) but uphold maximum family grants (Dandridge v. Williams, 1970)--is described as emerging from a timely combination of new litigant claims, available legal bases, and judicial values and role conceptions, all of which were shaped by the political climate of the era. Lawrence convincingly argues that litigation before the Court is a powerful method of political participation for the disadvantaged.

Originally published in 1990.

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CHOICE Review

Lawrence presents research findings on legal cases brought by attorneys for the Office of Economic Opportunity Legal Services Program (LSP) and accepted for review by the US Supreme Court between 1966 and 1974. She skillfully uses the area of appellate advocacy by attorneys for the poor to address processes and middle-range explanations of those processes that are at the center of social science literature on judicial politics. She argues that the LSP presented the Court with opportunities it seized to promote the poor's interests. She views the Court's response as emerging from new litigant claims, available or developing legal arguments, and the mix of judicial values and role perceptions of justices on the Court. Through careful comparison, Lawrence also shows how the decentralized structure of the LSP, its lack of clear goals, and the blending of client service and reformer roles for attorneys distinguish poverty litigation from that brought by more traditional interest group lawyers. Although the book contributes to an understanding of the flow of poverty law cases to the Supreme Court. Lawrence's portrayal of the LSP as a powerful voice for the poor ignores recent scholarship that views legal doctrine as ideology (e.g., D. Kairys's The Politics of Law, 1982). Additional research on the LSP suggests that appellate court victories contributed to segregating the poor from other classes and to assisting political officials in administering the welfare state (J. Katz's Poor People's Lawyers in Transition, 1982). Undergraduate collections. -M. Kessler, Bates College