Public Interest Law

An Economic and Institutional Analysis

Burton A. Weisbrod, Joel F. Handler, Neil K. Komesar

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9780520310803
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Public Law
• Index: Law

What is public interest law? How effective is it? What are the limits to litigation as a mechanism for conflict resolution? In this study, economists, lawyers, and sociologists evaluate an institutional form that is new to American society and, indeed, to the world--the public interest law (PIL) organization.   The book introduces the reader to the structure, resources, and activities of this "nonprofit industry," and also to the factors that affect PIL firms in their choices of cases and methods of handling them. The authors examine PIL's vast range of contemporary public policy concerns. These incude such general topics as the environment, consumerism, housing, employment discrimination, medical care, occupational health and safety, education finance, and taxation. A number of base studies are presented, and a method for economic analysis and evaluation is introduced and applied.   The study points to PIL's success in advocating under-represented interests, in winning courtroom decisions, and in translating legal victories into reallocations of resources. At the same time, it notes the bias of PIL towards test-case litigation, a propensity to focus on judicial victories rather than on real social change, and a tendency to use lawyers even when other types of professionals might be more effective. Many of these problems stem from uncertainty of funding and legal restrictions on "nonprofit" organizations. The result is a set of hurdles that distracts PIL firms from their principal goals.    The authors do not limit themselves to PIL, but comment on the effectiveness of legal instruments as devices for social change, and on the behavior of the voluntary nonprofit sector, a little-studied portion of the economy. The book presents a fresh approach to the study of both collective-type economic problems and institutional setting in which public interest law works.  
What is public interest law? How effective is it? What are the limits to litigation as a mechanism for conflict resolution? In this study, economists, lawyers, and sociologists evaluate an institutional form that is new to American society and, indeed, to

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents 1
• Preface
• Foreword
• Part I Introduction and Theoretic Analysis
• Chapter One Introduction
• Chapter Two Conceptual Perspective on the Public Interest: An Economic Analysis
• Chapter Three Problems of Enhancing the Public Interest: Toward a Model of Governmental Failures
• Chapter Four The Public Interest Law Industry
• Chapter Five The Public Interest Law Firm: A Behavioral Analysis
• Chapter Six What Might Public Interest Law Accomplish: Distributional Effects
• Chapter Seven Environmental Defense, I: Introduction to Interest Group Advocacy in Complex Disputes
• Chapter Eight Environmental Defense, II: Examining the Limits of Interest Group Advocacy in Complex Disputes
• Chapter Nine Housing, Zoning, and the Public Interest
• Chapter Ten Public Interest Law and Employment Discrimination
• Chapter Eleven Occupational Safety and Health and the Public Interest
• Chapter Twelve Public Interest Law Activities in Education
• Chapter Thirteen The Medical Marketplace and Public Interest Law
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter Sixteen Non-Law Public Interest Advocacy: Advertising on Children’s Television
• Chapter Seventeen Public Interest Law Activities Outside the U.S.A.
• Chapter Eighteen Financing Public Interest Law: An Evaluation of Alternative Financing Arrangements
• Chapter Nineteen Conclusions
• Contributors Biographical Sketches
• Table of Cases
• Index