ABSTRACT
A debate about the uses oflaw in the struggle for rights has continued among 'radical' or 'critical' lawyers (see Travers 1994). While some critical legal scholars maintain that law is necessarily subordinate to a dominant power in society, others are prepared to argue about the possibilities of counter-hegemonic rights strategies (Hunt 1990) and of law as a mode of resistance to law itself (Fitzpatrick 1992). However, the relationship between critical legal theory and progressive legal practice has been said to be 'at best problematical and at worst non-existent ... Most practising lawyers are too busy getting on with their work to notice, let alone worry about, the relationship between their activities and legal theory' (Economides and Hansen 1992).
