This paper discusses the fact that the relationship between law and political activism have unrealistically drawn a line between legislative and judicial institutional structures. This has failed to consider the structure of professional organizations and the impediments to political activisms created by the nature of legal expertise. It posits that community legal aid clinics are an example of the possibilities of integrating law and political activism.

The paper concludes by suggesting that the success of community legal clinics in sustaining legal activism and political activism over time shows that prevailing conceptions of legal professionalism can be challenged, and that democratic institutional and organizational structures are important mechanisms for democratizing expertise and developing an understanding of law not severed from its social and political context.