UC Berkeley

My dissertation, Out of Order: Radical Lawyers and Social Movements in the Cold War, analyzes how progressive lawyers coordinated the legal defense for organizations and activists, while at the same time defining and practicing their own politics and expectations. Through the lens of a particular organization, the National Lawyers Guild, I examine the trajectories of the labor movement, the struggle for social justice, and expressions of international solidarity, and show how these trajectories diverged and intersected throughout the second half of the twentieth century. I argue that the NLG served a significant function. It was an organizing space where lawyers and activists would discuss and develop legal strategies and political tactics and test the limitations of legal — and extra-legal — protest. Consequently, the NLG became a mirror that helped make and, in turn, reflected the political coalitions and ideological ruptures within the Left during this often tumultuous era. The variety of progressive and radical positions debated, as well as the numerous organizations that worked with and around the NLG, gave the organization a unique vantage point and a continuous ancillary role in the trajectory of social movements.

The global incorporation of a human rights platform during this period captured a significant measure of the energy and attention of radical lawyers. This development helped broaden the scope of civil and economic rights struggles. The continuing impact of this development on the ideological and practical construction of progressive litigation, community empowerment, and networks of solidarity during the late Cold War has been profound. In juxtaposition to the experience of lawyers in the United States, the final chapter looks at progressive attorneys in Mexico. This chapter analyzes the role lawyers played in regards to social movements in other legal systems and the broader impact human rights discourse had on domestic legal strategies in Mexico in particular. Critically, it stresses the international undercurrents of radicalism and social justice between the 1960s and 1980s.