Ying-ho Kwong. “The Legal Profession in Battle: Cause Lawyers Versus State-Embedded Lawyers in Hong Kong’s Democratization.” Social & Legal Studies, (2024).
This article examines the often-overlooked dynamic of how the state responds to cause lawyering by analyzing the emergence of “state-embedded lawyers” in Hong Kong. It argues that while cause lawyers advocate for political justice and democratic reform, the state strategically deploys state-aligned legal professionals to counter-mobilize public opinion and defend regime stability. The result is a deeply polarized legal profession engaged in political struggle on opposing fronts. The study contributes theoretically by introducing the concept of state-embedded lawyers and empirically by showing how these internal legal conflicts in Hong Kong reflect broader societal divisions, influence legal markets, and reshape public perceptions of the rule of law—especially under the influence of mainland China.