Abstract
Fidelity to Community: A Defense of Community Lawyering LAWYERS AND FIDELITY TO LAW. By W. Bradley Wendel. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2010. 286 pages. $35.00. "Many of the lawyers . . . really looked skeptical at community action."1 Introduction In July 2011, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, faced with a $400 million budget gap, proposed to close thirteen libraries across Greater Miami, including the Virrick Park Library in Coconut Grove Village West (the West Grove),2 an impoverished Afro-Caribbean-American community3 served by the University of Miami School of Law's Historic Black Church Program.4 Now in its fourth year, the Historic Black Church Program provides multidisciplinary resources in education, law, and social services to underserved, predominantly low-income residents of the West Grove through partnerships with the Coconut Grove Ministerial Alliance, a consortium of historic black churches and other local nonprofit entities, service providers, and schools for the purposes of grassroots community organization and legal rights mobilization.5 Publicly, Miami-Dade County officials asserted that the libraries slated for closing "were picked on two criteria: use and geography."6 Nevertheless, because the closings disproportionately impacted low-income communities of color adversely, the selection process raised serious questions and widespread suspicions of class bias and racial animus.7 Like many county library systems across the nation struggling to educate already large and growing low-income populations,8 Miami-Dade County libraries "serve not only as a resource to borrow books and participate in literacy programs, but provide much-needed Internet service." Although described as "a very modest facility in terms of space," the Virrick Park Library reportedly offers "a thriving educational experience for a substantial number of both youngsters and adults."10 As a result, both West Grove community advocates and elected officials protested the mayor's proposed closing of the Virrick Park Library, declaring that "the cost of the library is minimal compared to the value it provides the community."11 Within days of the mayor's announcement, West Grove church ministers and community leaders began to circulate e-mails opposing the Virrick Park Library closing and calling for political action to block it. To help map and gauge various strategic options, the Historic Black Church Program began to assess a range of legal-political tactics, including possible recommendations of limited direct-service representation, county-wide impact litigation, and legislative law reform. Direct-service representation required the recruitment of pro bono counsel (e.g., legal-services organizations and for-profit law firms), the solicitation of injured plaintiff parties (e.g., West Grove families and children), the formulation of plausible causes of action (e.g., civil rights disparate-impact claims and state constitutional right-to-education claims), and the fashioning of appropriate relief (e.g., declaratory and injunctive remedies, the latter requiring an impracticable evidentiary showing of irreparable injury and the probability of success on the merits). More daunting, impact or test-case litigation demanded the cooperation of multiple co-counsel and complex calculations of party standing and class certification. Law reform, by comparison, entailed private and public lobbying of key decision makers in the mayor's office and at the county commission. In addition, the Historic Black Church Program explored possible nonlegal alternatives, such as private fund-raising to replace the projected library budget shortfall and the physical relocation of the Virrick Park Library to a neighborhood church or school. Furthermore, the Program contemplated a media campaign (e.g., editorials and letters), public protest (e.g., a march, rally, or sit-in), and political pressure (e. …