This book provides a powerful analysis of the role of human rights lawyers operating within an authoritarian legal regime, focusing on China.
Archive
Lahav (2010), “Portraits of Resistance: Lawyer Responses to Unjust Proceedings”
This article explores the underexamined role of lawyers operating within manifestly unjust procedural regimes, particularly in the context of liberal democracies under internal stress.
Wendel (2010), Lawyers and Fidelity to Law
This book reimagines legal ethics as a commitment to the law’s role in resolving deep societal conflicts and maintaining political stability, rather than as a license for lawyers to bend legal rules in service of client interests.
Hualing (2011), “Challenging Authoritarianism through Law: Potentials and Limit”
This article explores the complex role of legal reform within authoritarian regimes, focusing on activist lawyers in China who strive to use the law to protect rights and promote social change.
Hopgood (2016), “Law and Lawyers in a World After Virtue”
David Kennedy’s critical legal scholarship challenges the traditional monopoly lawyers and legal scholars hold over defining law’s purpose, highlighting law as a form of political struggle rather than a neutral system.
Stauffer (2007), “The Rule of Law and its Shadow: Ambivalence, Procedure, and the Justice Beyond Legality”
This article argues that attorneys have a duty to act as guardians of justice in a legal order fraught with moral ambiguity and political pressure.
Mortazavi (2017), “The Cost of Avoidance: Pluralism, Neutrality, and the Foundations of Modern Legal Ethics”
The article argues that the legal profession’s shift to “neutral partisanship” in 1969 undermines lawyers’ ability to uphold justice and democracy by suppressing moral and ethical engagement.
Prosecutors Torch Trump’s ‘Worst Conceivable’ Court Nominee
Emil Bove, a former Trump defense attorney and current DOJ official, has come under fire after being nominated by Donald Trump for a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. …
Justice Ann Walsh Bradley reflects on her 30 years of service on the Wisconsin Supreme Court
In a heartfelt farewell after 30 years on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Chief Justice Ann Walsh Bradley emphasized judicial independence and the importance of public trust in the courts. Reflecting on her tenure, she highlighted …
China’s human rights lawyers speak out, 10 years after crackdown
A decade after China’s largest crackdown on human rights lawyers—the 2015 “709 incident”—legal professionals and activists report that government control over the legal system has intensified under Xi Jinping. While once there was space for …