Lawyering for Liberation: A Toolbox for Movement Lawyers

Ameca Reali

Book cover for Lawyering for Liberation: A Toolbox for Movement Lawyers
Book cover for Lawyering for Liberation: A Toolbox for Movement Lawyers
Image for variant 9780520392359
Image for variant 9780520392366
Book cover for Lawyering for Liberation: A Toolbox for Movement Lawyers
Book cover for Lawyering for Liberation: A Toolbox for Movement Lawyers
Image for variant 9780520392359
Image for variant 9780520392366

Lawyering for Liberation: A Toolbox for Movement Lawyers

Lawyering for Liberation: A Toolbox for Movement Lawyers

Ameca Reali

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Description

This fiery manifesto provides a concrete action plan for legal professionals and activists advancing Black liberation and transformative social change.

Revolutions happen in the streets, not in courtrooms. But in the struggle against systems increasingly designed to perpetuate inequality and benefit those in power, lawyers must do their part. As leaders from the acclaimed movement lawyering and advocacy organization Law for Black Lives, editors Marbré Stahly-Butts and Ameca Reali have spent years on the front lines of transformative social change. With Lawyering for Liberation, they offer concrete tools for fellow legal workers and lawyers working to achieve a just future.

Grounded in the politics of abolition, Black queer feminism, and anticapitalism, this approachable how-to guide distills key concepts of movement lawyering and assembles advice from dozens of lawyers, legal workers, and organizers in areas like jail and bail support, stop-and-frisk litigation, protester defense, reparations, family law, housing, and more. The result is not just a manual for resistance but an urgent call to join the movement.

About the Author

Ameca Reali is Executive Director of the Louisiana Fair Housing Action Center and former Membership Director at Law for Black Lives.

Marbré Stahly-Butts is Associate Professor at CUNY School of Law and cofounder and former Executive Director of Law for Black Lives.

Critical Reviews

"This is not just a manual for resistance--though it is that. It's a call to reimagine what legal work in service of liberation actually looks like. In a moment when authoritarianism is consolidating and traditional legal strategies are failing, that reimagining couldn't be more urgent."

-- "The Anti-Authoritarian Playbook"

Publishing Information

Publisher: University of California Press
Pub date: 2026-01-06
Length: 288 pages

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