This article by Will Falk originally appeared in the San Diego Free Press October 18, 2017.

In the war for social and environmental justice, even the best lawyers rarely serve as anything more than battlefield medics.

They do what they can to stop the bleeding for the people, places, and causes suffering on the front lines, but they do not possess the weapons to return fire in any serious way. Lawyers lack effective weapons because American law functions to protect those in power from the rest of us; effective legal weapons are, quite literally, outlawed. More…