CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES AND THE CAMPAIGN FOR AMERICAN LAW SCHOOLS : a revolution to break the... liberal consensus

Recent political science research into the American legal academy has been 'captured by conservatism'--this research has framed the institutional and ideological developments occurring within the law schools over the past forty years solely through the prism of modern conservatism. As a result, political scientists have ignored the political struggles of one of the most important legal reform movements of the 1980s and overlooked the hope for leftist reform that existed within American law schools during this period. Critical Legal Studies and the Campaign for American Law Schools tells the story of the critical legal studies movement. This formidable movement sought to fundamentally reconstruct law schools, train a new generation of leftist lawyers, and replace the dominant form of legal consciousness governing the American legal system. Instead of projecting a fatalism onto leftist reform, this book relies on extensive archival research and interviews to illuminate the radical potential that lived in the American legal academy of the 1980s. The critical legal studies movement was a towering presence in the law schools, and its legacy continues to hold out political possibilities and reform lessons for leftist legal scholars today. Paul Baumgardner is Assistant Professor at Belmont University, USA, where he teaches in the Legal Studies Program and the Honors Program. Before arriving at Belmont, he completed a joint Ph.D. in the Department of Politics and the Humanities Council at Princeton University, USA "Recent political science research into the American legal academy has been captured by conservatism - this research has framed the institutional and ideological developments occurring within the law schools over the past forty years solely through the prism of modern conservatism. As a result, political scientists have ignored the political struggles of one of the most important legal reform movements of the 1980s and overlooked the hope for leftist reform that existed within American law schools during this period. Critical Legal Studies and the Campaign for American Law Schools tells the story of the critical legal studies movement. This formidable movement sought to fundamentally reconstruct law schools, train a new generation of leftist lawyers, and replace the dominant form of legal consciousness governing the American legal system. Instead of projecting a fatalism onto leftist reform, this book relies on extensive archival research and interviews to illuminate the radical potential that lived in the American legal academy of the 1980s. The critical legal studies movement was a towering presence in the law schools, and its legacy continues to hold out political possibilities and reform lessons for leftist legal scholars today"-- Provided by the publisher Acknowledgments Contents 1 Moving Beyond Conservative Capture Conservative Capture The Critical Legal Studies Movement Why Chronicle the Crits? 2 The Birth of the CLS Movement Making the Movement: Origins, Timing, and Collective Formation “The Situation” Settling on a Collective Identity Mass Movement Wing School of Thought Legal Movement 3 The Promise of CLS Retrenchment Reviewing Retrenchment Transforming Anti-liberalism into Retrenchment Retrenching the Legal Academy “Where the Real Political Action Is” 4 Towards Influence and Institutionalization The Fem-Crits A Revolution on the Rise What About the Reagan Revolution? 5 Retrenchment Repelled The Media and Expanding the Zone of Conflict The Professional Expectations and Self-Understandings Cultivated Among Law Professors, or: The Defense of Faith, Manners, and Professionalism Condemning the Crits “Politics, All the Way Down” 6 Critical Lessons and the Campaign That Continues Moving Beyond the 1980s Lessons—Activist and Academic Index