How Planned Is "Planned Litigation"?

Abstract

Civil rights litigation undertaken by lawyers associated with interest groups, particularly the NAACP and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), is of ten described as planned” litigation. This article examines litigation by these organizations from the late 1960s through the early 1980s to explore the extent to which “planned litigation” is planned. The author interviewed both staff attorneys for organizations participating in race relations litigation and “cooperating attorneys” associated with such organizations. Elements of planned litigation discussed are litigating organizations’ choices—of areas of law on which to focus, of cases, of federal or state courts, and of amicus curiae participation—and the dynamics of litigation—including relations between staff and cooperating attorneys, litigators’ control of cases, and the effect of Supreme Court decisions on litigation strategy. The interviews reveal that much interest-group civil rights litigation is not selected deductively on the basis of previously developed criteria but instead develops inductively from cases that come to the organizations and is affected by pressure and circumstance. Counter to the view, stemming from Brown v. Board of Education, that civil rights litigation is undertaken as planned “campaigns” based on “blueprints,” it appears that much about “planned” litigation is problematic, with many constraints imposed by the actions of others and by resource problems, with the result that many deviations from litigation strategy occur. Thus much “planned” litigation is responsive and reflexive and beyond litigators’ control.

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