Agents of Justice : How the American Bureaucracy Mobilizes Private Lawsuits to Make Policy Work

In the last half century since the height of the rights revolution - a period marked by significant rights expansions but limited government capacity to enforce them - efforts to defend individuals' and communities' rights have hinged on the effectiveness of the "litigation state:" a fragile but sometimes powerful mode of governance that relies on private litigants and their attorneys, rather than agencies, to enforce the laws of the land. In Agents of Justice, Quinn Mulroy argues that this system of governance was built and shaped by the concerted, mission-driven efforts of the agency officials who have largely been written out of the story of the litigation state.She traces how constrained civil rights and environmental agencies established during the rights revolution developed creative strategies for mobilizing mass private legal activity on the statutes they enforce, generating significant, societal-level regulatory effects.In doing so, they acted as agents of justice. Mulroy buil