"Examining the influence of legal professionals on the dynamics of state policy making, this book looks at the responses of poverty lawyers to the social welfare law reforms of US Congress and state legislatures. Against a political climate characterized by its hostility towards welfare programmes, cutbacks in public assistance for poor families, the decline in available low-income housing and increasing levels of homelessness, Legal Services lawyers in several states initiated class action suits to protect families from losing their homes. This book presents a look at the poverty lawyers claims that when policies and practices of state officials prevent parents and children from being able to live together in their own dwellings, the state violates the legal rights of families. Providing careful case study analysis this book will prove an excellent resource for courses on public governance, human rights and law and society."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights ReservedExamining the influence of legal professionals on the dynamics of state policy making, this work looks at the responses of poverty lawyers to attempts by US Congress and state legislatures to dismantle social welfare programs and to straitjacket law reform activities in the 1980s and 1990s.
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