Cause lawyers crossing the lines: Patterns of fragmentation and cooperation between state and civil rights lawyers in Israel

Public Lawyers and Private Clients: An Empirical Observation on the Relative Success Rates of Cause Lawyers

“…20. These findings as to the low rate of success of petitioners (Palestinian or others) in final judicial disposition in the HCJ conforms with the results of other studies on the HCJ (see Kretzmer 1993;Shamir 1990;and Dotan 1999). 21.…”

“…The eight lawyers included in the political group were involved in 100 out of 134 cases in the study. More generally, cause lawyers (and civil rights organizations) are heavily involved in litigation on behalf of Palestinians before Israeli courts (Hajjar 1996;Dotan 1999). The intensive involvement of such lawyers in this field may improve the effectiveness in more than one way: First, it can simply account for professional specialization and expertise in the relevant legal field.…”

“…The Government of Israel is represented in the HCJ by the High Court of Justice Department (HCJD). This is a small department, normally composed of ten lawyers, of whom two or three specialize in house demolition litigation (see Dotan 1999). 15.…”

“…22. This, however, does not mean that state lawyers can never be involved in cause lawyering (see Dotan 1998;Menkel-Meadow 1998:33±34). 23.…”

“…Those cases where also included in category F. It is worth pointing out that significant achievements on the part of the petitioners in the course of settlements were by no means rare. The most common type of settlement in house demolition litigation are cases where the Government agreed to withdraw its original intention to demolish the house and to seal only one room instead, see Dotan (1999). c In this category I included all the petitions that cannot be classified as either success or failure on the part of the petitioner.…”