Bridging The Two Cultures: Toward Transactional Poverty Lawyering

Gregory E. Louis publishes “Bridging the Two Cultures: Towards Transactional Poverty Lawyering” in Clinical Law Review. Informed by CUNY School of Law’s lawyering seminar and building upon scholarship long calling for a paradigm shift toward a transactional understanding of social justice – especially Professor Susan R. Jones’s work – this Article calls upon law schools to leverage their positions and resources toward Black and Brown economic recovery. Specifically, the Article proposes that law schools do so by requiring their students to enroll in a transactional poverty law seminar and clinic instructing students toward assisting socially and economically disadvantaged small businesses with applications for capitalization and finance.