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Speaking of Justice: Encounters in a Legal Self‐Help Clinic
Author(s) -
Bertenthal Alyse
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
polar: political and legal anthropology review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 27
eISSN - 1555-2934
pISSN - 1081-6976
DOI - 10.1111/plar.12193
Subject(s) - legal profession , legal psychology , negotiation , legal research , legal pluralism , legal realism , economic justice , context (archaeology) , legal process , ethnography , law , political science , empirical legal studies , face (sociological concept) , legal ethics , sociology , psychology , social science , paleontology , anthropology , biology
This article explores a new form of legal aid commonly referred to as “legal self‐help.” Through ethnographic research in a legal self‐help clinic, I examine the techniques through which help to legal self‐help is produced, sustained, and sometimes even challenged as a means of better understanding and critiquing the reformist ideal of “access to justice.” In exploring this new context for the negotiation of legal disputes, I show how the shift from legal help to legal self‐help blurs the boundaries between professional and lay people, between procedure and substance, and between rules and relationships. By tracking the discursive movement across and through these categories, I explore the logic of legal self‐help as a form of access to law and the legal process.