Reflections on Public Interest Law

A Vast Conspiracy is Jeffrey Toobin’s expose of the Clinton/Jones/ Lewinsky scandal. In the book, Toobin explores both the technical and sordid details of the controversy that brought about the impeachment of the President of the United States. Toobin concludes that the impeachment was the result of a vast conspiracy, but not the “vast right wing conspiracy” that former First Lady Hillary Clinton spoke of. The conspiracy that Toobin alludes to is a “conspiracy” of politicizing the legal system—public interest law. Toobin argues, “There has been a conspiracy within the legal system to take over the political system of the United States.” He believes that this act of usurping the power and autonomy of the legal system began with the acts of the NAACP and ACLU who fought to end discrimination. Toobin postulates that these early battles by the likes of Thurgood Marshall paved the way for conservative groups to pursue doggedly their political enemies. He argues that politicizing the legal system has led to grotesque excesses where political opponents snipe at each other, clogging the courts, creating mountainous molehills, and generally undermining both the political process and the judicial system. In the backdrop of the recall election in California, I am inclined to agree with Toobin. That is, I am inclined to agree with Toobin until I walk into the office every morning.

What is ironic is that so much of what the Pennsylvania Health Law Project relies upon is not law. I am sure that Toobin never explored the idea of law melding with governmental bureaucracy, but so much of what the Health Law Project uses to help clients lies within a purgatory of departmental regulations, provider guidelines, memos, and bulletins. The sociopathic litigiousness that Toobin speaks of is a rarity in our world; we rarely have hearings, let alone the high-octane hearings Toobin describes. The sniping and viciousness that Toobin mentions is absent; we work with mannerly Victorian conversations, humble letters, and abundant reason. We work on helping people navigate the labyrinth of the bureaucracy. Perhaps this paradigm is a better way to look at the idea that Toobin poses.

Unlike Toobin’s model, most of the crises that I have observed in my work at the Health Law Project do not occur because people are malicious. They occur because the bureaucracies that we work within are confusing and static. There are various hierarchies within many of these agencies: local offices, regional offices, state offices, local oversight offices, and state oversight. It is very difficult to navigate these systems, let alone, when you are in the midst of a crisis. Our work is much like Chiron guiding people on the river Styx, but hopefully we lead people to the Elysian Fields.

Furthermore, these systems can be very static. The inability to change or accept different ideas can be stifling; this is why we work with clients and agencies to educate the public about various medical assistance programs. We educate consumers, agencies that provide associated services, and advocacy groups, as well as, government agencies about how to better advertise these benefits. We often end up spending days in communities just talking to advocates, politicians, and concerned citizens. Because we spend so much time in the communities we serve, we are concerned citizens of these communities.

The work we do is so far removed from the antagonistic atmosphere that Toobin describes, that is an atmosphere of sociopathic, misanthropic, maliciousness—an atmosphere where a cause cannibalizes the people who represent it. What we do and what I did this summer at the Pennsylvania Health Law Project is diametrically opposite—it is an atmosphere where the people are the cause. What Toobin explored is called public interest law but it is actually opportunism; what the Pennsylvania Health Law Project does is also called public interest law, but it truly is law in the interest of the public.