Social Impact Strategies

by Kenneth Phillips


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Fall 1976

Volume 19
Issue 1


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Abstract

The definition and establishment of consumer rights and remedies has been the principal emphasis of research intended to expand consumer protection. The federal government's legal services program has been and is an unprecedented experiment in effecting social change. It involves more than a 2,500 full-time lawyers working in 800 offices throughout the U.S., government funding of over $100 million a year, the filing of thousands of law suits each year, lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C. and the state capitals, assistance to low-income people in organizing as pressure groups to represent their own interests, and, throughout, a high level of awareness and sensitivity to the realities of poker that underlie the social order and social change. The legal services program was begun in 1965. Although not expressly contemplated in the antipoverty legislation that established the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) funding for legal services programs began within six months of the passage of the Economic Opportunity Act. The sense of urgency that pervaded the nation at that time about race and problems helped to attract many young lawyers of talent and tremendous dedication that were committed to doing something about the underlying institutional and legal causes of poverty in the U.S.

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