Mark Fathi Massoud. “The Legal Profession’s Promise Of Justice: Choices And Challenges In Legal And Socio-Legal Work.” In The Legal Process and the Promise of Justice: Studies Inspired by the Work of Malcolm Feeley. Edited by Rosann Greenspan, Hadar Aviram, and Jonathan Simon, pp. 314-334. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

This chapter examines the dual tensions in the legal profession between public-spirited idealism, promoting access to justice, protecting rights, or advancing social transformation, and self-interested materialism, such as increasing earnings or professional status. Lawyers and judges navigate these competing impulses in their everyday practice, while legal scholars studying them face analogous tensions in balancing empirical research with normative values. By highlighting these dynamics, the chapter illuminates the promises and perils of legal work, particularly in politically fragile or backsliding democracies, where attorneys’ decisions can influence the protection of civil liberties and the enforcement of the rule of law. Drawing on Malcolm Feeley’s comparative scholarship, the chapter emphasizes that understanding how legal professionals pursue justice across diverse political contexts, including the United States, East Asia, and former British colonies, provides insight into how attorneys can serve as agents of stability, resistance, or reform in contexts where democratic norms are under threat.