It was a time when lawyers thought they could change the world. n In the 1960s and 1970s, public-minded attorneys came to Washington to put their law degrees to use on behalf of a panoply of social causes. The timing was right: Progressive politics were in the ascendancy, emboldened by the movements of the 1960s in opposition to the Vietnam War and in support of civil rights.
Legal movements were born or came of age: prisoners’ rights, children’s rights, women’s rights, consumer protection, the environment, civil rights. New public interest law firms were established to carry out the work. And Washington was right at the center.
