A Law School professor, famous for defending the man who leaked the Pentagon documents and for helping small town habitants to sue chemical companies in a case popularized by the film "A Civil Action" has a new cause: poker.

Charles Nesson is seeking to ease the recent restrictions implemented by the government; the teacher is also the founder of the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society, an organization created along with some of his students, the point is to promote poker as a fun learning tool and to redefine it as a game of skill, rather than a game of chance.

"I'd like to legitimate poker as an educational instrument," Nesson said. "It's a great way to learn and practice the skills of seeing what things look like from another person's point of view."

Locally, Nesson wants to loosen Massachusetts' limits on small-scale poker tournaments. He's still angry that an annual student-run charity tournament was canceled last spring because organizers did not know they needed a permit. He's also lobbying Congress to overturn or amend a U.S. law that effectively bans online poker and gambling.

"Obviously the distinction is that in games of chance, you're not using your brain," he said. "You may be entertaining yourself but you're not really engaging in a developmental activity, whereas (in) games of skill you develop skill. You learn to be smart, you learn to win."

About a month ago, Nesson and several dozen students formed the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society. Besides the legal arguments, they want to advocate what they say are academic aspects of poker. They have plans to run academic seminars on poker for any one who’s interested in the game.

Nesson said the Poker Players Alliance, a 2-year-old lobbying group that claims to represent 809,000 poker enthusiasts nationwide and gets funding from commercial gambling companies, provided $10,000 to support a seminar last spring where he, students, academics, pros and lobbyists discussed strategies.