read on Jacques Vergès, the 'devil advocate', famous in my country, who used some of his trials as political tribunes (the one where he defend fln terrorist for example)
Practicing Law as a Communist
You're generally right but there used to be a handful of lawyers who did some good back in the day at least. Lawyers wrote the Civil Rights Act and created Medicaid.
Don't do it to change the world, but if your life brings you to the field you should help a few people out at least.
Join the NLG or start a chapter.
Do both and become a patent attorney $$$$$$$$
It's heavily dependent on the locality. NYC public defenders are notoriously overworked and do little more than a kabuki theater negotiation over plea deals, but I know a PD in Cleveland who likes it.
We need leftist lawyers comrades, and not for the reasons everyone keeps mentioning in the thread. Like a criminal organization needs a corrupt lawyer, a radical organization needs a radical one. Not because they want to justify themselves in the law mind you, but to merely combat the state's efforts to dismantle you. Sacco and Vanzetti? Leftist lawyers, damn good ones, defended them. (Disregard the fact they failed, the point is they were there) The IWW? Has there own lawyer team. Greenpeace? Socialist lawyers defended those guys from FBI bullshit. Our comrades, the working people, need their rights defended on every ground, even the bourgeois system. It's not about fundamentally changing things by yourself, it's about your utility to the movement as a whole.
t. law student.