Patricia J. Woods. “Cause Lawyers and Judicial Community in Israel: Legal Change in a Diffuse, Normative Community.” In The Worlds Cause Lawyers Make: Structure and Agency in Legal Practice. Eds. Austin Sarat and Stuart Scheingold, pp. 307-348. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2005.
This chapter examines how cause lawyers in Israel played a crucial role in encouraging the High Court of Justice (HCJ) to challenge religious authorities, marking a shift from judicial coexistence to conflict. By integrating into the “judicial community” of justices, scholars, and legal professionals, these attorneys influenced the court’s evolving norms toward protecting civil rights and undermining religious control. Despite professional constraints, cause lawyers strategically used litigation to expand the judiciary’s role in upholding rights, thereby transforming legal disputes into broader cultural and political struggles over secular and religious authority in Israel.