Batesmith, Alex. “Lawyers Who Want to Make the World a Better Place – Scheingold and Sarat’s Something to Believe In: Politics, Professionalism, and Cause Lawyering.” In Leading Works on the Legal Profession, 1st ed., Routledge, 2023.
Scheingold and Sarat’s Something to Believe In (2004) remains a foundational statement on cause lawyering—one that challenges the narrow conception of lawyers as neutral technicians and instead highlights the moral, political, and emotional investments that sustain lawyers committed to social change. In this chapter, Batesmith revisits the monograph from the vantage point of a contemporary “post-truth” era, where activist or human-rights-oriented lawyers face rising hostility from populist politics and media. He emphasizes how Scheingold and Sarat articulate the power of “belief” as both motivation and resource for legal practitioners working toward justice, democracy, or human rights. The chapter situates the book within the broader traditions of legal profession scholarship and the authors’ larger multi-volume project on cause lawyering, underscoring how Something to Believe In serves as their theoretical centerpiece. While concise, the chapter highlights the enduring relevance of the work in understanding why and how lawyers commit themselves to causes that transcend conventional professional roles.