Old Wine in New Bottles: Public Interest Lawyering in an Era of Privatization

Both the theory and practice of public interest lawyering are in transition. Whereas the public interest lawyer of the 1960s and 1970s typically advocated before administrative agencies and courts on behalf of poor people and underrepresented groups, the public interest lawyer of today assumes a much greater variety of roles and is involved in a broader array of tasks. One of the causes of this development is the privatization of government, which has been defined as an increased reliance on the private institutions of society to satisfy public needs