Only Judgment: The Limits of Litigation in Social Change

IDEBATE Press is proud to reissue this classic work on public interest litigation with a new foreword by the author.

Is litigation an appropriate, effective way to promote social change? What criteria should we use to distinguish among causes, and is there a sound basis in law for making distinctions? In Only Judgment, Aryeh Neier examines how the role of litigation and the public interest bar has changed since Brown v. Board of Education, the impact of litigation in advancing causes, as well as its impact on the movements espousing those causes. Suggesting that in the US, public interest litigation can be a double-edged sword, Only Judgment explores both the possibilities and the limits of litigation as a way to advance interests. Neier's writing gets at the heart of how groups and movements gain, or fail to gain, access to political power.

Aryeh Neier is president of the Open Society Foundations. Prior to joining the Open Society Foundations in 1993, he was executive director of Human Rights Watch, of which he was a founder. Before that, he worked at the American Civil Liberties Union, including national executive director from 1970 to 1978.