Representing Radicals: A Guide for Lawyers and Movements

by Tilted Scales Collective

“Representing Radicals is a critical, timely resource for movement lawyers and legal workers to understand and center shared litigation strategies of those navigating the criminal legal system in their struggle for liberation.” — Pooja Gehi, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild

“Taking our struggles to the streets means being ready to defend ourselves in the courtroom. Representing Radicals is a concise and practical manual that will play an invaluable role in facilitating the cooperation between movement defendants and their counsel in the many struggles to come.” — Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook

Representing Radicals helps lawyers understand ways to work with radical defendants, with an explicit focus on how to help them achieve ends that go beyond traditional legal goals. For example, many radical defendants want to use their trials to discuss political issues even if doing so could lead to a conviction when a standard criminal defense might lead to an acquittal. Understanding radical defendants’ goals and political priorities is a crucial part of providing them with the most robust criminal defense while helping them strengthen and defend their social movements. This book and its precursor, A Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant, are based on the Tilted Scales Collective’s belief that lawyers and radical defendants can work together in shared struggle in ways that strengthen movements when fighting criminal charges.

Genres: Law, Nonfiction

140 pages, Paperback

First published May 4, 2021

Reviews

[Corvus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Representing Radicals: A Guide for Lawyers and Movements , assembled by Tilted Scales Collective, is a nice little book that is valuable for organizers and should be required reading for attorneys. I am not a lawyer or legal scholar and thus cannot speak much to the accuracy or effectiveness of the broad range of legal topics and strategies contained in this guide. As a result, this review will be a bit shorter than usual. I have however been involved in legal support, have dealt with my own drama, have had many radical prisoner penpals, have organized a lot in the past, and have seen the results of the organizing of many others. With that background and what it has taught me, this guide seems pretty on point.

Representing Radicals is accessibly written such that lawyers and non-lawyers can read it. I read it cover to cover, but it is well organized such that a reader could skip around to the sections that are most relevant. Any references to already covered material refer to the section of the book in which it can be found. Tilted Scales Collective describe themselves on their website as, "a small collective of
dedicated anarchist legal support workers who have spent years
supporting and fighting for political prisoners, prisoner of war, and
politicized prisoners in the so-called united states." These politics definitely shine through in the text which is unapologetically leftist, but it still remains appropriate for an audience outside of the far left.

The guide offers a breakdown of why specific and sometimes unique legal strategies are necessary when working with radical defendants. TSC covers the wide variety of ways to tackle cases of leftists with an emphasis on cooperation between legal counsel and defendants as well as the importance of non-cooperation with the state. (Meaning not snitching or otherwise endangering one's comrades.) They offer a lot of anecdotes which show their recommendations in practice which is an indispensable part of the book (though the font on these sections is VERY small and tough to read.) They also cover how to work with legal support organizers and the variety of ways media considerations are critical in defenses of radical activists.

I got a lot out of this book, even though I was not the target audience. It's a quick read and definitely worth one's time, especially if they are involved in organizing in any way. For lawyers, I can't think of an excuse for not reading this book, except perhaps the public defenders who are sitting on 350 cases and haven't slept in 3 days. If you work in legal defense, this should be on your bookshelf with lots of bookmarks and highlights.

This was also posted to my blog.

[Greenleaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

So grateful that this book exists and that I was able to tap into it as a resource in my own legal battles. It's rather repetitive but critical to the survival of our movements.

[amelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

good! and important topic! but just a little bit too repetitive if I’m gonna be nitpicky