ABSTRACT
Welfare rules are perceived as a kind of ominous presence – "pervasive and obtrusive" extending into the most intimate spaces of life. Anxiety has a number of valences that are variations on the theme of being with the other person. The anxiety of the poverty lawyer is occasioned by the responsibility of speaking for another. Scholarly accounts of poverty law attempt to stabilise and articulate the norms that inform lawyerly discretion and define the best way of linking together theory and practice to bring "coherence and insight" into the diverse tasks of the lawyer. Whilst there was no engagement with William Stringfellow in the new poverty law scholarship, the concern with the anxious ethics of lawyering runs through the writings of its practitioners. Poverty law has at its centre the problematic of the self's anxious relationship with others. Poverty law is an ongoing process, a way of living a sensibility or following a vocation.
