In Their Own Words: How Ordinary People Construct the Legal World

Marshall, Anna‐Maria; Barclay, Scott

doi:10.1111/j.1747-4469.2003.tb00209.x

Cited by 86 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…She also understood the potential that legal advocacy has in defending her right to decent, affordable housing. This was a common feeling among low-income householders in this study, though many also suggested that trying to find legal representation would involve confronting an inefficient bureaucratic process compounded by a lack of free or low-cost legal services (Ewick and Silbey, 1998; Marshall and Barclay, 2003). This begs the question: in what ways are the housing problems of the poor remedied through legal services offered within the context of their healthcare facilities?…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Consistent with the objectives of health care reform, programs such as MLP have the potential to not just serve as “band-aids” for medical and legal problems, but to address inadequate enforcement of current laws especially those related to housing. This is especially promising for vulnerable groups who have limited access to legal services since in addition to financial barriers lawyers and other bureaucrats are often perceived with scrutiny and distrust, a perspective that is exemplified in the quote by a non-MLP participant (Eileen on page 7) and otherwise well-established in the literature (Ewick and Silbey, 1998; Marshall and Barclay, 2003). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘Extra oomph:’ addressing housing disparities through Medical Legal Partnership interventions

Hernández

2016

Housing Studies

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Low-income households face common and chronic housing problems that have known health risks and legal remedies. The Medical Legal Partnership (MLP) program presents a unique opportunity to address housing problems and improve patient health through legal assistance offered in clinical settings. Drawn from in-depth interviews with 72 patients, this study investigated the outcomes of MLP interventions and compares results to similarly disadvantaged participants with no access to MLP services. Results indicate that participants in the MLP group were more likely to achieve adequate, affordable and stable housing than those in the comparison group. Study findings suggest that providing access to legal services in the healthcare setting can effectively address widespread health disparities rooted in problematic housing. Implications for policy and scalability are discussed with the conclusion that MLPs can shift professionals’ consciousness as they work to improve housing and health trajectories for indigent groups using legal approaches.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Extra oomph:’ addressing housing disparities through Medical Legal Partnership interventions

Hernández

2016

Housing Studies

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“…Do those who perceive a wrong simply tell the wrong-doer, do they tell others, or do they ignore it? Following Ewick and Silbey’s (1998) groundbreaking work on the common place of law, a growing body of literature has taken up these and related questions of legal consciousness and mobilization (e.g., Albiston 2005; Connolly 2002; Fleury-Steiner 2003; Hoffman 2005; Litowitz 2000; Lovell 2006; Marshall 2005; Marshall and Barclay 2003; Richman 2001). Central to these studies are the interrelated processes by which individuals first come to experience or perceive some wrong and then do something about it.…”

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confidence: 99%

Legal Consciousness and Responses to Sexual Harassment

2009

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Studies of legal mobilization often focus on people who have perceived some wrong, but rarely consider the process that selects them into the pool of potential "mobilizers." Similarly, studies of victimization or targeting rarely go on to consider what people do about the wrong, or why some targets come forward and others remain silent. We here integrate sociolegal, feminist, and criminological theories in a conceptual model that treats experiencing sexual harassment and mobilizing in response to it as interrelated processes. We then link these two processes by modeling them as jointly determined outcomes and examine their connections using interviews with a subset of our survey respondents. Our results suggest that targets of harassment are selected, in part, because they are least likely to tell others about the experience. Strategies that workers employ to cope with and confront harassment are also discussed. We find that traditional formal/informal dichotomies of mobilization responses may not fully account for the range of ways individuals respond to harassment, and we propose a preliminary typology of responses.How do individuals respond when they feel their rights have been violated? Do those who perceive a wrong simply tell the wrong-doer, do they tell others, or do they ignore it? Following Ewick and Silbey's (1998) groundbreaking work on the common place of law, a growing body of literature has taken up these and related questions of legal consciousness and mobilization (e.g., Albiston 2005;Connolly 2002;Fleury-Steiner 2003;Hoffman 2005;Litowitz 2000;Lovell 2006;Marshall 2005; Marshall and Barclay 2003;Richman 2001). Central to these studies are the interrelated processes by which individuals first come to experience or perceive some wrong and then do something about it. In this study of sexual harassment, we attempt to link these two processes -in this case, subjectively experiencing sexual harassment and then going on to tell a supervisor or government agency that it has occurred. We also examine how individuals respond to harassment and why they employ particular response strategies. We find multidimensional responses to harassment, such that traditional formal/informal dichotomies may not adequately account for diversity of strategies that individuals employ. We therefore propose a preliminary multidimensional typology of mobilization responses.We first describe legal consciousness, targeting, and mobilization within the context of sexual harassment. Next we outline a general model of sexual harassment and legal mobilization based * An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2003 meetings of the Law and Society Association, Pittsburgh. We thank Jeylan Mortimer for support in several phases of this research, Jason Houle for research assistance, and Steve Barkan, Lance Blackstone, Steve Cohn, Andy Halpern-Manners, Mike Vuolo, and Sara Wakefield for helpful comments.Direct correspondence to Amy Blackstone, Department of Sociology, University of Maine, 5728 Fernald Hall, Orono, ME 04...

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“…The caseworkers and volunteers who helped people with their cases learned a legal game (Lens ; Marshall and Barclay ; Ewick and Silbey ) that was not entirely humanitarian: assisting people classified as victims. The event was something that happened to people, not something that defined who they were.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disaster, Displacement, and Casework: Uncertainty and Assistance after Hurricane Katrina

Sterett¹

2015

Law & Policy

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Casework in the United States in social welfare programs has been limited in what caseworkers can do, as what they do has been tightly structured by rules. Recently, scholars have argued that episodic assistance in disaster brings sympathy in public policy more than restriction. The sympathy after disaster brings new money, and individual assistance is in turn the subject of casework. This article relies upon interviews, observations, and government documents to assess how casework served displaced people after Hurricane Katrina. The article finds that caseworkers after Katrina were caught in a program that would end at some uncertain time, and with new and unclear rules that changed frequently, making the sympathy difficult to enact for many of the poorest people. Casework after disaster is episodic and convened by nonprofits and, after Katrina, paid for by a large grant and then written into statute. Assistance for displaced people is likely to continue, given the expectation of more disasters and rising sea levels. The question of how it is like or unlike other forms of assistance and what sympathy in policy means in helping displaced people is therefore likely to continue to matter.

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In Their Own Words: How Ordinary People Construct the Legal World

Abstract: A wave of scholarship about legal consciousness has demonstrated how law shapes the everyday lives of ordinary people (

Cited by 86 publications

References 15 publications

‘Extra oomph:’ addressing housing disparities through Medical Legal Partnership interventions

‘Extra oomph:’ addressing housing disparities through Medical Legal Partnership interventions

Legal Consciousness and Responses to Sexual Harassment

Disaster, Displacement, and Casework: Uncertainty and Assistance after Hurricane Katrina

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