This weekend I came across an article in Legal Affairs magazine from Yale Law School that provides more information about issues covered in the book I recommended a few days ago: Democracy By Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government. The magazine piece provides a closer look at a case covered in the book, and at Marcia Lowry, the attorney who filed the suit against New York City to “reform” its child welfare agency. For a sense of the book, read George Leef’s review of it, and how efforts to “reform” agencies and services such as child welfare and special education via court decrees often end up not helping or even hurting the very people they’re supposed to help. In the process, they take away authority and responsibility from local government and elected officials and bestow it on unelected lawyers and judges. The book and the Legal Affairs article, taken together, offer an in-depth view of why the decrees often don’t deliver on their promises.