Contents: Series preface: Introduction. Part I Class, Poverty, and Law: A sociological analysis of the law of vagrancy, William Chambliss; Civil justice and the poor: issues for sociological research, Jerome E. Carlin, Jan Howard and Sheldon Messinger; Governing through crime, Jonathan Simon. Part II Legal Foundations for the Welfare State: A genealogy of dependency: tracing a keyword of the US welfare state, Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon; Constructing the political spectacle: the interpretation of entitlements, legalization and obligations in social welfare history, Joel F. Handler; Subsidized lives and the ideology of efficiency, Martha M. McCluskey. Part III Poverty, Gender, and Race: Subordination, rhetorical survival skills, and Sunday shoes: notes on the hearing of Mrs G., Lucie E. White; 'An honest living': street vendors, municipal regulation and the black public sphere, Regina Austin; Spiritual and menial housework, Dorothy Roberts. Part IV Access to Law: The practice of law as a confidence game: organizational cooptation of a professional, Abraham S. Blumberg; Socializing the legal profession: can redistributing lawyers' services achieve social justice, Richard I. Abel. Part V Identity and Legal Consciousness: Community resource orientation among low income groups, Felice J. Levine and Elizabeth Preston; Conformity, contestation and resistance: an account of legal consciousness, Patricia Ewick and Susan S. Silbey. Part VI Law, Poverty and Social Change: Low income people and the political process, Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward; Community economic development as progressive politics: towards a grassroots movement for economic justice, Scott L. Cummings; Beyond welfare reform: can we build a local welfare state?, Frank Munger; Name index.