To members of the mainstream media and, alas, to much of the public, the phrase “public interest law” conjures images of the ACLU fighting to remove the Ten Commandments from courthouse walls, of Ralph Nader inveighing against assorted (and seemingly endless) corporate malefactors of great wealth, or of the Sierra Club standing athwart economic development in order to protect a hitherto unidentified endangered species. Public interest law, that is to say, is widely seen as a stepchild of the political left....