Immigrant Workers, Their Lawyers, and Notions of Procedural Justice

• In Event: 2463 - Sociology of Law

Abstract

Lawyers are a central component of any judicial or administrative process in civil disputes. Yet, they also play a contradictory role in the project to expand access to justice. While a good deal of work focuses on “how to make your client happy,” less is known from the perspective of clients themselves. However, there is reason to believe that different groups of clients are also having distinct subjective experiences with their lawyers, and one often overlooked characteristics is client immigration status. While we know some about the role of lawyers in immigration law cases, immigrants are navigating a host of rights arenas that are available to them irrespective of their immigration legal status. To this end, here I focus on the experience of immigrant plaintiffs, and the role of immigration legal status in shaping the lawyer-client relationship. I argue that undocumented status multiplies existing challenges for low-wage claimants, and can impact why and how clients seek out legal counsel, the expectations clients have with their lawyers, and their eventual sense of satisfaction – or frustration – with their lawyer. This is important given that immigrant workers’ particular vulnerability enhances the need for a broker and advocate to shepherd them through the process. Drawing on a sample of 91 workers navigating the labor standards enforcement bureaucracy, I examine how legal status shapes how workers seek out, engage, and evaluate their experience with the legal profession. I find that undocumented workers relate to their lawyers from a more disadvantaged position of power, and think in distinct ways about which strategies and solutions they are willing to pursue. As losers in an immigration regime rigged from the start against them, undocumented clients seem more skeptical of their lawyers’ advocacy intentions, and the integrity of the legal process as a whole.

Author

• Shannon Marie Gleeson, Cornell University