The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law (Book Review‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Steven Teles's The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement (1) represents the best and most thorough attempt to document the spectacular growth of conservative efforts to influence the law since the 1970s. Both scholars and legal activists have much to learn from his careful account of this important episode in legal history. Part I of this Review briefly summarizes Teles's analysis. Part II considers its lessons for scholarly understanding of legal change. Teles's most important claim is that effective institutionalization of legal change requires not only a demand for reform by voters or interest groups, but also a supply of trained advocates, public interest law firms, and judges willing and able to influence the law in the direction desired by an insurgent political movement. As Teles effectively demonstrates, public demand for legal change does not in itself generate the needed supply of institutional resources. Through his analysis of the growth of conservative and libertarian organizations such as the Federalist Society, the Institute for Justice (IJ), and the Center for Individual Rights (CIR), Teles chronicles the difficulties faced by the legal right in its attempts to create the cadre of lawyers and institutions they needed to challenge liberal dominance over the law. The successes and failures of this effort are instructive.