Engaging Hearts and Minds: How and Why Legal Organizations Use Public Education

Abstract

While scholars recognize that cause lawyers use public education as a reform tactic, they rarely place this tactic at the center of their analysis, leaving a gap in our understanding of how cause lawyers use extrajudicial tactics to navigate the limits of litigation. In this article, I examine the role of public education in the work of cause lawyers, through a study of lawyers from eight legal organizations representing the rights of LGBTQ people. Through interviews, archival work, and analysis of publications, I find that lawyers and organizations use education for four functions: (1) to prime a pathway to successful litigation; (2) to control for backlash; (3) to leverage pressure during litigation or policy negotiation; and (4) to generate community and public awareness. This article shows that public education is not simply an ancillary tool to these groups - it is vital to their missions and their everyday work.