Odd Couples: Friendships at the Intersection of Gender and Sexual Orientation

approach is that rather than merely telling the true stories from his own legal cases, he frequently uses excerpts from penal codes, verbatim legal motions, and lists of discovery documents that provide a slough of meaningless legal detail—’’legal stories’’ less rich with life than they could be. The book is repetitive—indeed, it could have been a long law review article—and ideas are introduced without fully following up. Mirandé restates what has happened in the legal cases but does not really reflect on what happened. Like Delgado and Bell, the author creates a fictional alter ego, Fermina Gabriel, who serves as both a Chicana voice and potential counternarrative to Mirandé. However, there is no uniform format to Fermina’s letters and they make up a small portion of the text (in some chapters not at all), which is significant because it is the female voice. As a result, the book is not critical enough of male chauvinism. One chapter that is set up to deal with this issue (on domestic violence) does not present new insight on these issues in the end. Mirandé does provide some avenues of self-help for his clients. He hires a homeless man as a course supervisor. He barters with clients for room painting, car repair, and so on. Although these exchanges are mutually beneficial, are they empowering? He does build long-term relationships with people whose cases he takes, treating them less like clients and more as friends (although this has its own problems). But by his own admission, his actions ‘‘did little to help homeless people as a group or to counter the biases’’ (p. 122) or to counter other injustices. One way in which Mirandé might have solidified his efforts at empowerment and reciprocal exchange would have been to allow the clients themselves to have a voice in his book, through quotes or contributions to chapters. As it is, we only see the rascuache experience through his filter. Who is the book for? The specific legal concerns that are mentioned are not expanded to illustrate more general sociological concepts. Chapters do not end with a sociological analysis of each case. Law students or practicing lawyers might find it useful in terms of becoming this type of people’s advocate. The differences between pro bono and rascuache lawyers are that the latter never or rarely charge for their services, seek to have a reciprocal relationship with clients, and lack expertise and resources. ‘‘[B]eing a pro bono attorney made it more difficult for me to practice rebellious or nonregnant lawyering’’ because clients become more dependent and take free services for granted (p. 230). Mirandé does discuss the courtroom strategies and challenges of this type of lawyer, especially one who cannot give full time to legal work: dealing with continuances and delays, disappearing witnesses, and the ethical issues that come up when a client is a student or friend. His clients are hampered by his lack of money and resources. However, Mirandé also shows how the criminal record, typically of minor charges and convictions, works more heavily against Latino immigrants than others. He demonstrates the ways in which being an immigrant and Latino may serve as an assumption of guilt with organizations such as Child Protective Services. Public interest attorneys unfamiliar with immigrants or Latinos may find these useful insights on the practice of lawyering for the underprivileged. In sum, however, Rascuache Lawyer is a book that is unfulfilled.