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Lawyers, Structure and Power: A Tribute to John RESEARCHING LAW Lawyers, Structure and Power: A Tribute to

When a future historian of science reconstructs the emergence of rigorous scholarship of the legal profession in the United States in the later 20th century, John Heinz will stand as a foundational figure who inspired later generations of scholars. This volume recognizes Heinz’s pivotal work, not least by publishing yet another increment to his own forty-year corpus of scholarship. This essay briefly sketches the broad contours of Heinz’s personal scholarship and the lines of research and writing it has stimulated.

From the very beginning, Heinz’s work his own. We demonstrate in turn his ethnic and religious segmentation has proceeded along two tracks—the impact on studies of social structure in the bar was largely a thing of the social structure of the legal profession and power. past. Chicago Lawyers (Heinz and and the power and politics of lawyers. Laumann 1994; first published in Occasionally, they have intersected in SOCIAL STRUCTURE 1982) documented the continuing his own work, but notably each line A significant strand of Heinz’s significance of ethnicity and religion of scholarship has produced highly scholarship concerned the relationship as channeling mechanisms to different generative work not only along tracks between social stratification and fields of practice and, thus, the status he himself has pursued but also along professional status within the legal hierarchy of the profession. Jews, paths taken by his students, sometimes profession. When the first Chicago Catholics, and Protestants were in directions that diverged quite Lawyers Survey was fielded in overrepresented in distinct fields sharply in theory and viewpoints from 1974–75, it was widely reported that of law, reflecting the mapping of

Perhaps no other American Bar Foundation research professor has had as a long a tenure or involvement in socio-legal scholarship as John P. “Jack” Heinz.

Heinz served as professor of law for more also served for many years on the board of 2007, and attained emeritus status at the than forty years at Northwestern Law the Chicago Appleseed Fund for Justice, a Bar Foundation as well in 2009. To mark School, and research professor at the Bar research, education and advocacy non- these occasions, the ABF hosted a seminar Foundation for nearly as long. Over that profit that works for reform of the justice in honor of Heinz at the May 2010 meeting time he witnessed the birth of the law-and- system, and he served as president of the of the Law and Society Association, and society movement in legal scholarship and John Howard Association, an organization commissioned a “Symposium in Honor of contributed greatly to its development. advocating for prison reform. In addition John P. Heinz” for the Fall 2011 issue of His seminal work on the social structure to his academic and civic contributions, ABF’s scholarly journal Law & Social Inquiry. of the American legal profession has Heinz has written about boxing for Sports The article that follows here, “Lawyers, employed network analysis to understand Illustrated, and about his other passion, Structure, and Power: A Tribute to John power relationships between lawyers both jazz music, for The Hudson Review. An Heinz,” was written by Robert L. Nelson and within the profession and in the larger avid outdoorsman, Heinz spends summers Terence C. Halliday as the introduction to arena of American national politics and with his wife Anne at their cottage in the the symposium volume. policy-making. Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. From 1982 to 1986 Heinz was Director Heinz retired from his position as Owen L. of the American Bar Foundation. He has Coon Professor of Law at Northwestern in

2 vol 23 | no 2 | Spring 2012 Lawyers, Structure and Power: A Tribute to John Heinz Terence C. Halliday and Robert L. Nelson

social categories onto professional legal services in the twenty years An early empirical study of criminal categories. Even more profound, since the mid-1970s study. The axes law in Illinois (Heinz, Gettleman, Heinz and Laumann developed with of stratification had shifted from and Seeskin 1969) revealed two rigorous empirical data a distinction ethnicity and religion to gender and strands of lawyers’ politics, one between “two hemispheres” of minority status. In addition, the followed by Heinz and the other the profession—one that served distance between the two segments not. He studied six substantive personal clients and one that served of the bar had grown dramatically, pieces of legislation that came corporate clients. Heinz and Laumann with corporate law firms adding a before the Illinois Legislature in established the ironic finding that significant new proportion of lawyers 1967. Following Truman’s theory the lower status personal-client and an even greater share of the of group politics, he focused on the hemisphere of the profession possessed earnings of lawyers while lawyers in role of key interest groups, not least more autonomy from clients than did small firms, government, and public- the role of the Chicago and Illinois the higher status lawyers representing interest practice constituted a declining State Bar Associations in the passage corporate clients. proportion of the profession. Some of the Illinois Criminal Law Code, of these latter experienced a loss in comprehensively revised and passed in Heinz and Laumann recognized the real income as they garnered a smaller 1961. Heinz showed the remarkable significance of their results to the ideal proportion of total legal services degree to which the state delegated of equal justice under the law. Their revenues. Heinz and his colleagues its law-making authority to the concluding words state: had again, through systematic CBA and ISBA. “In effect,” he said, [I]f the reality is that large cities like methods, measured a growing “the procedure followed delegated Chicago have two legal professions, inequality in law that mirrored a substantive legislative power to the one recruited from more privileged growing inequality in society. bar association committee. Though social origins and the other from we doubt that anyone was quite less prestigious backgrounds, while POLITICS AND POWER OF so explicit about it, it was almost yet other social groups are almost LAWYERS as if the legislature had said to the entirely excluded, and if the first kind Arguably, politics was Heinz’s Joint Committee: ‘You settle it, and of lawyer serves corporate clients that first love. His graduate training whatever you work out (within are quite wealthy and powerful, and at Washington University and his reasonably broad limits) we will the other serves individuals and small longstanding friendship with political approve’” (325). businesses that are far less powerful, scientist, Robert Salisbury, showed a However, the same article also reveals then the hierarchy of lawyers suggests proclivity for politics in Heinz’s earlier his early affinity for elite theory and a corresponding stratification of law publications, one that continues to hints at his later highly productive into two systems of justice, separate the present. What is most intriguing, co-authorship with Edward Laumann. and unequal. (Heinz and Laumann however, is the juxtaposition of his If the Criminal Code in particular was 1994, 175). path taken with that not taken. substantially written by a “group,” it The 1995 survey of Chicago lawyers, written by Heinz, Nelson, Sandefur, We were supported in this effort by the Collaborative Research Network on the Legal Profession of the Law & and Laumann as Urban Lawyers in Society Association, led by Michele de Stefano Beardslee and William Henderson, and by the editor of LSI, Laura 2005, demonstrated the dramatic Beth Nielsen, the special assistant on this effort, Aaron Smyth, and LSI editorial coordinator, Amy Schlueter. The Call changes in the social composition for Papers for the 2010 Law & Society Association Meetings produced four panels and some 16 papers that explored key themes of ’s scholarship: Networks of Power; Stratification in the Legal Profession; the Autonomy of of the bar and in the market for Law and Lawyers; and Organizations and Markets in Legal Services.

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was a set of individuals, strategically through delegation by the state, at This line of work stands with one placed, who shaped the contours least in respect to the criminal code. foot in the elite theories of American of Illinois criminal law. Said Heinz, However, that is arguably his last politics—from C.W. Mills to Useem, “The decision-process on criminal law engagement with the organized bar Higley, and others—and the other in legislation in Illinois was dominated as a collective actor. Instead, he sociological network theory. Here, he by white, middle-class prosecution- inspired his students to take his basic has produced one ground-breaking oriented lawyers.” Here again he insight and explore its ramifications, writing after another, from the anticipates decades of later work to initially with respect to particular extensively cited Chicago Lawyers and show how differences in the attributes bar associations, such as the Chicago its successor articles and volume to his pioneering work on lawyers on the political right. Is there a politics sui generis of lawyers, From the vantage point of politics, a singular politics that is theirs alone however, another irony extends from the beginning to the end of his corpus and in which they have their own on networks of lawyers. Heinz, the academic lawyer and respected particular authority and distinctive participant in prominent professional advisory groups in the Cook County pathway to power? criminal justice system, remains consistently skeptical of the power of lawyers qua lawyers. He takes as his foils Tocqueville’s early 19th century of individual lawyers and their Bar Association (Halliday 1987) notion that lawyers might exercise position in political networks might and the Association of the Bar of a peculiar degree of power in the explain the power of lawyers. the City of New York (Powell 1988) new Republic and C. Wright Mills’ and later through interdisciplinary Quite apart from the substantive assertion that the “inner core” of studies worldwide addressing the thrust of this 1969 article, it displays America’s power elite might include collective action of the bar and the the characteristic grace of Heinz’s corporation lawyers as brokers legal complex on political liberalism writing. It is at once mildly self- (Heinz 2011). (Halliday, Karpik, and Feeley 2007, deprecating, yet insightful. It is gentle 2012). Ironically, to this day, he In part, this critical orientation and wise but theoretically generative. remains not fully convinced of this towards lawyers and their power It humorously apologizes for the extension of his earliest findings on accords with the critique of dullness of its extensive description but lawyers’ politics to bar associations, functionalism that gathered steam in concedes that “after all, this is what legal occupations, and issues. the 1980s through the work of Magali readers have come to expect from law Nevertheless, in a real sense, the long Sarfatti Larson on professions in reviews.”(281). It reveals what would trajectory of research on lawyers’ general and Richard Abel and Philip become a hallmark of his writing: collective action on behalf of political Lewis on lawyers in particular. In an No matter how complex or technical liberalism has roots in Heinz’s earliest early essay on the power of lawyers the statistics or representation of research on lawyers. (1983), Heinz distinguishes among data, Heinz finds a way to make it three ways lawyers might exercise approachable, even personal. On the other hand, the line of power: through the representation scholarship that Heinz himself has Heinz’s stylish Illinois criminal law of clients, through a possible pursued rigorously and relentlessly article does not disguise an agenda- distinctive role in electoral politics, also emerged from a theoretical setting moment for what have become and through collective action. The foundation laid in the Illinois two major lines of work on the politics last he rejects on the grounds that research. Its emphasis has been on of lawyers. On the one hand, he the heterogeneity within the bar the intersection of the individual pointed to the “group” mobilization precludes professional collective action attributes of lawyers and their of the bar and emphasized the impact on anything important, a hypothesis structuration in policy networks. of bar associations on law making that continues to be engaged to the

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Ties among lawyers and organizations active on legal affairs, 2004–5

Berliner Planned Parenthood 1 PatrickHen ry Center TexasRev iewof Rich Lawand Politi cs Counci lon ForeignRelations U.S. Houseof Brown Institute Represen tati ves Evans, forJusti ce Mincberg Roger RAND 2 Mercatus Center, 1 George Mason Heritage Found. Center forthe Study Lynn Family Research of thePresi dency Barr Counci l Amer ican Counci lof People ACLU George Trustees andAlumni Am.Way Levy Conservative Nati onal Conser vati ve Saperstein Meese Campai gn Fund Porter Keating Counci lfor McIntosh Nati onal Policy Georgetown Reed BrettonWoods AEI Committee Chambers Henderson H&H Fed. Soci ety Peck U.S. ChamberCom. 3 Brookings Institution Aron 2 Anderson Citi zens fora Consumer s NAACP Engler SoundEconomy Union Committee forJusti ce Greenberg Claybrook Hodel Focuson LCCR 3 theFamily Gray Bush/C heney 4 FriendsofGeorgeAllen Alliance Kerry Archer Bauer FriendsofMarkFoley forJusti ce Cicconi John McCain 2008 ABA Conrad Baylor Nati onal Committeeto Barnes Greenberger 4 EndJudicialFilibusters Brady Cavendish Bush forPresi dent Campai gn Romney Spirit of Amer ica Marshall Evans, R.D. Amer ican Legi slative 6 Exchange Counci l Liberal Grey Alliance Greco Schwartz Sekulow Def. Fund 5 Nati onal Women’s Henigan LawCen ter Curtin Obamafor Amer ica 5 European Center Amer ican LawInsti tute forLaw &Justi ce BinghamMcCutchen ThirdWay Bull Suprem eCourt Am.Cen terfor Historical Soci ety Law&Justice 6 Nati onal Bar GE Associ ation (Figure 1 from Paik, Heinz and FriendsofHillary Bennett Southworth, “Political Lawyers: The Weber Gore2000 HillaryClinton Structure of a National Network,” 36 forPresi dent Democr aticSenatorial Law & Social Inquiry 4 (2011) ) Jenkins Gould Campai gn Committee

Figure1: Ties Among Lawyers and Organizations Active on LegalAffairs Issues, 2004–05. present day (Harding and Whiting Hollow Core (Heinz et al. 1993) in socio-legal scholarship—the 2012). The first, he acknowledges presents a conclusion that will be cause lawyering initiative—pursued but, in the brilliant inversion of found repeatedly in his studies of causes celebrated by lawyers on Chicago Lawyers, argues it may go in Washington policy making and seems the left. Many of us criticized this exactly the opposite direction hitherto to rebut Mills decisively. Not only tendentiousness and wondered aloud assumed, namely, that it is C. Wright are there no lawyers in the center of whether the theory of cause lawyering Mills’ corporate clients who shape network space, but there is no one else could accommodate causes on the the orientations of lawyers thereby either. While he readily acknowledges right as well as the left, as any good denying the professional autonomy of there may be a methodological artifact theory should be able to do. Heinz, corporate lawyers, a theme elaborated in this finding (Heinz 2011, 27–30), Southworth, Paik and others did more by Robert Nelson (1988) with respect repeated studies cannot find the than wonder and ruminate about the to law firms. It is personal client missing hub of strategically located scope of cause-lawyering theory. They lawyers, low in the prestige hierarchy lawyer-brokers, not in Washington, plunged into an extensive research of the bar, who might exert greater not in Chicago. enterprise to map the causes and influence over their clients. networks of politics on the U.S. right. The exception can be found in another In so doing, they refreshed the agenda Heinz’s second prospect for lawyers’ of Heinz’s pioneering intellectual of research on the power of lawyers. power in everyday legislative politics, forays. For many years, one of the he has consistently doubted. The most successful collective enterprises

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In contrast to policy studies that covered the entire breadth of the left- right spectrum in U.S. politics, Heinz From the very beginning, Heinz’s work and his collaborators focused on has proceeded along two tracks—the issues salient to “lawyers on the right” (2007). Again, they pose the question, social structure of the legal profession in terms of a narrower ideological spectrum, of whether lawyers as part and the power and politics of lawyers. of a professional community can move beyond their sectionalism to forge a common cause, to serve an politics because he observes both International Bar Association’s Human “integrative role.” Here again, they that the core has an “extraordinarily Rights Institute critical surveillance connect lawyer attributes and their high density,” even “a sense of of basic rights’ abuses the world over. positioning in the social structure of ‘groupness,’” and that a particular Those who answer “no” point to the bar to a variety of causes, and organization, The Federalist Society, the inability of the organized bar to they find clear demarcations in the exerts outsized influence. mobilize consensually on many issues space between business conservatives and of lawyers individually to display In a very important sense, Heinz has and religious conservatives. Initially, any different sort of politics when they posed for himself and many others they find that, in a network of all descend to the playing field of policy a fundamental question: Is there occupations, “lawyers are, perhaps, debates writ large. no more likely to forge consensus than a politics sui generis of lawyers, a are other interested parties” (Heinz, singular politics that is theirs alone The debate goes on. It is a fitting Southworth, and Paik 2003, 40). and in which they have their own tribute to John Heinz that he When they focus on lawyers alone, particular authority and distinctive fueled much of this debate at however, they discover that there is pathway to power? Those who the outset and he infuses it with indeed a core set of actors who fill the answer “yes” maintain there is a energy to the present. As singular “structural hole in the network that quintessentially lawyers’ politics on a as Heinz’s contribution has been to separate the business constituency narrow range of issues where lawyers understanding the social structure of from religious conservatives” (Paik, speak with authority, most especially the legal profession, it has been no less Southworth, and Heinz 2007, 883). when they do so collectively and consequential for its lasting imprint In fact, Heinz comes very close here to consensually. This is the politics of on studies of the politics of lawyers, a reclaiming his earlier interest in group the Pakistani lawyers in 2007 and the politics integral to the most intractable issues of our time.

THIS SYMPOSIUM This symposium serves as a living testament to the importance of Jack Heinz’s work, for the issues that Jack made central to law-and-society scholarship remain vital to our field. It is appropriate, therefore, that the lead article in this symposium is co- authored by Jack and his longtime collaborators Ann Southworth and Anthony Paik. They employ network analysis to examine the role of lawyers in national politics—a theoretical and methodological concern that The planning team for Chicago Lawyers. Left to right: Paul Schnorr, John P. Heinz, is among the most significant Edward O. Laumann, Robert L. Nelson contributions of Jack’s research. Jothie

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Rajah exemplifies the continuing CONCLUSION Symposium in Honor of salience of Jack’s contributions to There is much more we could say studies of lawyers and politics as she John P. Heinz about the contributions that Jack confronts the autonomy of law and Lawyers, Structure and Power: Heinz has made to the field of law the independence of the Singapore A Tribute to John Heinz and society through his leadership Law Society in a nation in which a Terence C. Halliday and in one of the first law and social discourse of legality is deployed to Robert L. Nelson science programs funded by the limit democratic politics and keep Russell Sage Foundation, through his Political Lawyers: The Structure a tight rein on dissent. Two articles mentorship of many young scholars of a National Network examine stratification in the legal (including the two of us once upon Anthony Paik, John P. Heinz, profession. Zaloznaya and Nielsen a time), through his directorship of and Ann Southworth use qualitative interviews to document the American Bar Foundation at a the modern face of professional Mechanisms and Consequences critical period in the 1980s, through of Professional Marginality: marginality among urban public his almost fifty years of teaching and The Case of Poverty Lawyers interest lawyers, and Dinovitzer research at Northwestern University Revisited examines longitudinal data on lawyers’ and the American Bar Foundation. Marina Zaloznaya and careers to demonstrate the continuing But perhaps the greatest testament to Laura Beth Neilsen salience of elite social attributes in the any scholar is that his or her work careers of a large national sample of Punishing Bodies, Securing continues to inspire and inform other young attorneys. Finally, John Coates, the Nation: How Rule of Law research. This symposium leaves no Michele DeStefano Beardslee, David Can Legitimate the Urbane doubt that the great themes isolated Wilkins, and Ashish Nanda report Authoritarian State by Jack at the beginning of his findings from a survey of and in-depth Jothie Rajah career—and continued by Jack and his interviews with the chief legal officers progenitors throughout his career— The Financial Rewards of Elite of S&P 500 companies about how they will long continue to be amplified and Status in the Legal Profession select outside counsel. Their results qualified, confirmed and rebutted. In Ronit Dinovitzer reveal the continuing significance the meantime, Jack continues to write of relationships between corporate Hiring Teams, Firms, and and undoubtedly will do so until the clients and outside counsel, despite Lawyers: Evidence of the Evolving lure of the Adirondacks and his long- the growth and transformation in the Relationships In the Corporate postponed journalist proclivities at last market for corporate legal services we Legal Market gain the primacy they deserve. have observed in recent decades. John C. Coates, Michele M. DeStefano, Ashish Nanda, and David B. Wilkins

REFERENCES

Halliday, Terence C. 1987. Beyond Monopoly: Heinz, John P. 1983. “The Power of Lawyers.” Heinz, John P., Robert L. Nelson, Rebecca L. Sandefur, Lawyers, State Crises, and Professional Empowerment. Georgia Law Review 17 (3): 891–911. and Edward O. Laumann. 2005. Urban Lawyers: The Chicago: University of Chicago Press. New Social Structure of the Bar. Chicago: University of ______, 2011. “Lawyers’ Professional and Political Chicago Press. Halliday, Terence C., Lucien Karpik, and Malcolm Networks Compared: Core and Periphery,” Arizona M. Feeley, eds. 2007. Fighting for Political Freedom: Law Review 53 (2): 455–92. Heinz, John P., Robert W. Gettleman, and Morris A. Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Seeskin. 1969. “Legislative Politics and the Criminal Heinz, John P., and Edward O. Laumann. [1982] 1994. Political Liberalism. Portland, OR: Hart. Law.” Northwestern University Law Review 60 (3): Chicago Lawyers: The Social Structure of the Bar, rev, 277–358. ------, eds. Forthcoming Fates of Political Liberalism ed. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. in the British Post-Colony: The Politics of the Legal Nelson, Robert L. 1988. Partners with Power: Social Heinz, John P., Ann Southworth, and Anthony Paik. Complex. New York: Cambridge University Press. Transformation of the Large Law Firm. Berkeley: 2003. “Lawyers for Conservative Causes: Clients, University of California Press. Harding, Andrew, and Amanda Whiting. Forthcoming. Ideology, and Social Distance.” Law and Society “Custodian of Civil Liberties and Justice in Malaysia: Review 37: 5–50. Paik, Anthony, Anne Southworth, and John P. The Malaysian Bar and the Moderate State.” in Fates Heinz. 2007. “Lawyers of the Right: Networks and Heinz, John P., Edward O. Laumann, Robert of Political Liberalism in the British Post-Colony: Organization.” Law & Social Inquiry 32 (4): 883–917. Nelson, and Robert H. Salisbury. 1993. The Hollow The Politics of the Legal Complex in Africa, South Core: Private Interests in National Policy Making. Powell, Michael J. 1988. From Patrician to Asia and South East Asia, ed. Terence C. Halliday, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Professional Elite: The Transformation of the New Lucien Karpik, and Malcolm M. Feeley. New York: York City Bar Association. New York: Russell Sage Cambridge University Press. Foundation.

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Berliner PRESIDENT Planned William C. Hubbard Parenthood 1 PatrickHen ry Center Rich DIRECTOR TexasRev iewof Robert L. Nelson Lawand Politi cs Counci lon WRITER | EDITOR ForeignRelations U.S. Houseof Brown Institute Katharine W. HannafordRepresen tati ves Evans, forJusti ce Mincberg Roger COPY EDITOR RAND 2 Mercatus Center, 1 Anne Godden-SegardGeorge Mason Heritage Found. Center forthe Study Lynn Family ReDESIGNERsearch of thePresi dency Perhaps the greatestBarr testament to any Counci l Weiher Creative Amer ican Counci lof People ACLU Trustees andAlumni Am.Way Levy George Saperstein Meese ConservativeCONTACT Nati onal Conser vati ve scholar is that his or her work continues Email: [email protected] mpai gn Fund Porter Keating Counci lfor McIntosh Phone: 312.988.6500Na ti onal Policy to Geinspireorgetown and inform other research. Reed www.americanbarfoundation.orgBrettonWoods AEI Committee Chambers Henderson H&H Fed. Soci ety Peck John P. Heinz U.S. ChamberCom. ©2012 American Bar Foundation.3 Br Allook rightsin reserved.gs Institution Aron 2 Anderson Citi zens fora Consumer s NAACP Engler SoundEconomy Union Committee forJusti ce Greenberg Claybrook Hodel Focuson LCCR 3 theFamily Gray Bush/C heney 4 FriendsofGeorgeAllen Alliance Kerry Archer Bauer FriendsofMarkFoley forJusti ce Cicconi John McCain 2008 ABA Conrad Baylor Nati onal Committeeto Barnes Greenberger 4 EndJudicialFilibusters Brady Cavendish Bush forPresi dent Campai gn Romney Spirit of Amer ica Marshall Evans, R.D. Amer ican Legi slative 6 Exchange Counci l Liberal Grey Alliance Greco Schwartz Sekulow Def. Fund 5 Nati onal Women’s Henigan LawCen ter Curtin Obamafor Amer ica 5 European Center Amer ican LawInsti tute forLaw &Justi ce BinghamMcCutchen ThirdWay Bull Suprem eCourt Am.Cen terfor Historical Soci ety Law&Justice 6 Nati onal Bar GE Associ ation Bennett FriendsofHillary Weber Gore2000 HillaryClinton

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U.S. Postage U.S. Figure1: Ties Among LawyersOrg. Non-Profit and Organizations Active on LegalAffairs Issues, 2004–05.