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56 Brook. L. Rev. 861 (1990-1991)
Goldberg v. Kelly on the Paradox of Lawyering for the Poor

handle is hein.journals/brklr56 and id is 871 raw text is: GOLDBERG v. KELLY ON THE PARADOX OF LAWYERING FOR THE POOR Lucie E. White* INTRODUCTION In Goldberg v. Kelly' people on welfare, speaking through lawyers, claimed a right to be heard. The case enacts a dilemma that cannot be avoided when lawyers seek justice for the socially and politically disempowered. This dilemma is figured in the very word for the work that lawyers do. Advocacy presumes a client12 who does not feel the power to speak for herself. When an advocate speaks for3 her client, she does not merely offer a needed service. The advocate also reiterates the client's predica- ment within the helping relationship itself. Because advocacy is a practice of speaking for-of presuming and thereby prescrib- ing the silence of the other-the advocate, no matter how re- bellious she aspires to be,4 inevitably replays the drama of sub- ordination in her own work. In order to lawyer against subordination, against the semantic logic of advocacy itself, it is not enough for the lawyer to assault the injustice that she sees out there in the client's social world. She must also turn her * Professor of Law, University of California at Los Angeles School of Law. This essay was originally delivered orally at the Goldberg u. Kelly colloquium. 1 397 U.S. 254 (1970). 2 According to Eric Partridge's research, the word client derives from the Latin verb cluere, to be named, hear oneself named. The participle form of this verb, cliens, was used in ancient Rome to refer to plebeians under the patronage of patricians, be- cause the subordinate person in such a relationship was known by the name of his pa- tron. See E. PARTRIDGE, ORIGINS: A SHORT ETYMOLOGICAL DIcroNARY OF MODERN En- GLISH 366 (1958); 3 OXFORD ENGLISH DIcnoNARY 320 (J. Simpson & E. Weiner eds. 1989). The loss of the power to name oneself and one's reality has been considered by several humanist writers to be at the core of the existential experience of subordination. See, e.g., P. FRmE, PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED (hM. Ramos trans. 1982); A. RICH. ON LIES. SECRETS AND SILENCE: SELECTED PROSE 1966-1978 (1979). ' The Oxford English Dictionary defines advocate as one who... speaks for... another. The modem term derives from the Latin advocatus, which means literally one summoned or 6alled to another, especially one called in to aid one's cause. See 1 OXFORD ENGLISH DIOoNARY 194 (J. Simpson & E. Weiner eds. 1989). See G. Lopez, The Rebellious Idea of Lawyering Against Subordination (1990) (unpublished manuscript on file with the author).

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