Overview

Explores the critical role that American lawyers have played since the nation's founding and what the future holds for the profession The American legal profession faces significant challenges: the changing nature of work in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic; calls for greater racial and gender justice; threats to democracy; the inaccessibility of legal services for the majority of Americans; the risk of obsolescence owing to the emergence of new technologies; and the disaffection many lawyers feel toward their work. Ambitious in its scope yet straightforward in its approach, Lawyer Nation seeks to address these crises by offering a path forward for the legal profession. Ray Brescia provides concrete ideas for transforming law into a field whose services are accessible, egalitarian, and viable in the long term. Further, he addresses how the profession can improve so that the health of its practitioners is not compromised in the process. If the legal profession does not respond to its crises in an effective way, he argues, the dysfunction and unfairness plaguing the legal world will deepen. This is an unprecedented opportunity for the world of law to reimagine its future in way that honors its highest ideals: preserving the rule of law, protecting individual liberty, and addressing social inequality in all of its forms.

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9781479823680

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Americans have long been ruled by lawyers, good and bad, even as that profession has become increasingly alienated from its own work. Unfairness and dysfunction haunt the legal world, as critical legal services have grown tragically inaccessible for those who need it most. In this surprisingly hopeful book, a dedicated public interest scholar and lawyer looks backwards and forward to unpack the historical strands that caused this breakdown, but also map an institutional path whereby our legal profession can better honor its ideals of professionalism, access and inclusion. * Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean, Yale Law School; former Legal Adviser and Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. State Department *

"""Americans have long been ruled by lawyers, good and bad, even as that profession has become increasingly alienated from its own work. Unfairness and dysfunction haunt the legal world, as critical legal services have grown tragically inaccessible for those who need it most. In this surprisingly hopeful book, a dedicated public interest scholar and lawyer looks backwards and forward to unpack the historical strands that caused this breakdown, but also map an institutional path whereby our legal profession can better honor its ideals of professionalism, access and inclusion."" * Harold Hongju Koh, Sterling Professor of International Law and former Dean, Yale Law School; former Legal Adviser and Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. State Department *"

Author Information

Ray Brescia is the Associate Dean for Research & Intellectual Life and the Hon. Harold R. Tyler Professor in Law & Technology at Albany Law School. He is the author of Lawyer Nation: The Past, Present, and Future of the American Legal Profession and The Future of Change: How Technology Shapes Social Revolutions; and editor of Crisis Lawyering: Effective Legal Advocacy in Emergency Situations; and How Cities Will Save the World: Urban Innovation in the Face of Population Flows, Climate Change, and Economic Inequality.

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