Source: (2007) California Law Review. 95(5): 1829-1878.
Community lawyering is all about faith, faith in others and faith outside the law. … ‘” CEDAD’s work in Coconut
Grove Village West, Overtown, and Liberty City illustrates the broad range of race-conscious legal and non-legal interventions
open to lawyers working collaboratively with individual clients and client groups to aid low-income communities
of color. … These dilemmas create the backdrop for CEDAD’s community lawyering decisions to offer assistance
in Umoja Village, to mediate homeowner/tenant, victim/offender, and nonprofit development conflicts in Village West,
and to introduce medical-legal advocacy resources in Overtown. … Even when carefully crafted, race-conscious community
lawyering runs the risk of encouraging an essentialist construction of racial identity and narrative in legal advocacy
on behalf of communities of color. … Debate over the content of client identity and narrative in advocacy is predicated
on a fuller notion of autonomy than the standard conception of the lawyering process contemplates. … Together
they burden CEDAD’s community lawyering decisions to offer assistance to the Umoja Village homeless squatters, to
mediate the homeowner/tenant, victim/offender, and nonprofit conflicts in Village West, and to channel medical-legal
advocacy resources to Overtown. … The same identity-making and narrative practices materialize in assisting communities
of color in combating poverty. (Abstract).
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