Chapter 1: Externship Foundations
10 1.9(1) Systemic Advocacy
Gemma Smyth
Systemic Advocacy
This coursebook contains a section on systemic advocacy because it is more common in social justice-oriented externship programs. Regardless of the area of law, it is also important to understand the relationship between individual and systemic advocacy. Much of the work of systemic advocacy falls outside of “traditional” litigation work. Certainly, test cases, appeals, and other litigation-based interventions remain part of a systemic advocacy toolbox. But many other techniques are used to advance the goals of a client, community or justice issue. Below is a list of other systemic advocacy methods that lawyers and other advocates use to advance a systemic advocacy goal.
Electronic Outreach/Social Media – Using technologies such as email, websites, blogs, podcasts, wellphones, Facebook or Twitter to reach a large audience and enable fast communication.
Earned Media – Gain media coverage for an issue to get visibility for particular groups or individuals through pitching to media assets…
Coalition and Network Building – Bringing individuals, groups, or organizations together on a particular issue or goal everyone agrees on.
Grassroots Organizing and Mobilization – Creating or building on a community-based movement supporting an initiative, issue or idea, generally by empowering people to advocate against or for policies that affect them.
Rallies and Marches – Gathering groups of people for symbolic events that gain enthusiasm and attention (especially with the media)
Voter Education – Informing specific groups of voters of a particular issue or position prior to an election.
Litigation or Legal Advocacy – Using the judicial system to move policy by filing lawsuits, civil actions and other advocacy tactics.
Briefing/Presentations – Individual or group meetings ( in person) to make an advocacy case…
Issues/Policy Analysis and Research – Doing research on an issue or problem to better define it and/or identify solutions
Policy Proposal Development – Developing a policy solution for the issue or problem being addressed
Policymaker and Candidate Education – Talking to decisions makers and/or candidates about an issue or positions, and about its support.
Relationship building with Decision Makers – Networking with people who have the authority to act on an issue
Harvard Family Research Project, A User’s Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning (Cambridge: Presidents of Fellows of Harvard College, 2009) online: https://archive.globalfrp.org/publications-resources/browse-our-publications/a-user-s-guide-to-advocacy-evaluation-planning
More on Systemic Advocacy
This video, filmed in Windsor, Ontario, and featuring Windsor Law graduates, introduces systemic (as opposed to individual) approaches to social change. The video gives several examples of systemic advocacy from Windsor, Ontario.Part 2 of this video examines a few different types of systemic advocacy (awareness raising, solidarity and decision-maker engagement), and how they might work together in an advocacy campaign.
Charity Models & Justice Models of Lawyering – “Upstream” and “Downstream” Advocacy
Theories of justice (Kantian ideas, for example) have engaged with concepts of “charity” and the “duty of charity” and “justice”. In modern social construction, “charity” has been associated with donations, relief efforts, volunteer work, and (after the Parkland shootings in the US) “thoughts and prayers. “Justice” has been associated with solidarity, systemic change, “working with” rather than “working for”.
The “river” metaphor is often used to describe systemic approaches. If a company pollutes a waterway, communities downstream of the waterway will experience harmful effects. In the “downstream” approach, a government could address pollution in each community individually. In an “upstream” approach, a government could go to the source of the pollution and stop the pollutor from polluting the waterway in the first place.
Lawyering can sometimes resemble a charity model, and sometimes resemble a justice model depending on how it is practiced. Using the water methapor, a “downstream” approach might involve representing individual clients at the Social Benefits Tribunal for a disability appeal. An “upstream” approach might involve changing the legislation to make eligibility less challenging, instituting a universal basic income, or providing living and working conditions such that fewer people become disabled to begin with.
Both models are important to ensure no one is left behind, but attention should be paid to both in considering meeting clients’ needs and supporting good practice and policy.
Reflection Questions
- What are the first words that jump to mind when you think of the word ‘lawyer’? What has your externship done to complicate or perhaps reinforce these ideas?
- What employment contexts are most intriguing to you? Is there a type of work or an approach to lawyering that resonates for you?
- Think of an advocacy campaign or social movement that has engaged you or perhaps one you worked on. What elements were successful? Which could have been improved? Were there lawyer involved? Why or why not? In what ways do lawyers support or hinder social movement work?
- In your experience, what is the relationship between individual and systemic advocacy in law practice? What are some complementary and possibly contradictory aspects of these approaches?
