Ann Southworth. “Lawyers and the Conservative Counterrevolution.” Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 43, no. 4 (2018): 1698–1728.
This article analyzes how the conservative legal movement in the United States has successfully mobilized lawyers, organizations, and financial backers to reshape the legal and political landscape, contributing to a broader democratic backsliding. It highlights how conservative and libertarian attorneys have built a powerful legal infrastructure, producing a pool of highly credentialed lawyers who influence law and policy through positions in law firms, advocacy organizations, think tanks, academia, and government. Republican administrations have drawn on this network to appoint judges and promote legal agendas aligned with the conservative movement, achieving significant court victories in areas such as gun rights, religious liberty, campaign finance, and voting rights.
The article draws on recent books by Jefferson Decker and Amanda Hollis-Brusky, which explain how conservative lawyers embraced “counter-rights” strategies and built institutions like the Federalist Society to legitimize and spread their ideas. These lawyers, once skeptical of legal activism, have come to lead a counterrevolution that uses the courts to limit government power and roll back liberal legal reforms. The movement’s success is rooted in its deliberate development of advocacy networks, ideological coherence, and sustained funding. However, the article notes ongoing challenges in managing internal divisions within the conservative legal coalition. Overall, it shows how lawyers can become central political actors in movements that erode democratic norms and institutions.