Ex. Law, Power and Social Change - Fieldwork

The Seminar and Externship is taught by Kumar Rao and Andrew Friedman, Lecturers in Law. This class will explore power at all levels of government and how lawyers, organizers, organizations and movements, as well as elected officials, can and must use a range of strategic tools to catalyze social change and promote racial and economic equality. The externship seminar and placements will expose students to the varied roles that lawyers are playing in supporting community organizing and social movements, including in campaign and policy innovation.

We will examine theories, practices and case studies of organizing and power-building, pulling from a range of fields including community organizing, movement lawyering, law and political economy, critical race theory, and campaigning. We reflect on major questions raised by our current political, climate, carceral, and economic crises, and their intersections with questions of law and power.

Course content and externship placements will focus on the role of law and lawyers in supporting community and movement-conceived campaign, policy and research initiatives at the city, state and federal levels – from analyzing constraints on local authority, drafting legislation, organizing and mobilization planning, to advising on political fights. Special attention will be paid to the importance of community organizing and power-building as the central strategy towards winning durable reforms and social transformation.

The externship will comprise (a) a weekly, 2-hour seminar, focused on core legal issues and academic literature bearing on social movements; state and local policymaking; law and organizing; and holistic advocacy; and (b) 10 hours per week of externship work in policy and research initiatives at a range of grassroots and progressive policy and advocacy organizations.

The Seminar
The weekly seminars will be focused on core legal issues and academic literature bearing on organizing and movements, state and local policymaking, and effective policy advocacy.

Externship Placements
Students are expected to do 10 hours per week of fieldwork (both virtual and in-person depending on site) to support ongoing policy and campaign initiatives among a set of host advocacy organizations, past sites have included The Action Lab, Make the Road NY, FWD.US, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Green New Deal Network, and the Center for Popular Democracy.

Students will receive four credits total, two graded academic credits for the in-class seminar and two ungraded credits for the field work component. The seminar will be graded on weekly class participation, class presentations and simulations, periodic short reflection papers on readings and fieldwork, and a final term paper.

The course will be open to JD and LL.M. candidates and will be limited to 10 students to ensure active engagement and discussion. There are no prerequisites.