Carol Jones. “Dissolving the People’: Capitalism, Law and Democracy in Hong Kong.” In Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism. Edited by Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik, and Malcolm M. Feeley, pp. 109-150, Oxford, U.K: Hart Publishing, 2007. In this chapter, author Carol Jones challenges the conventional assumption that …
Sida Liu. “Birth of a Liberal Moment? Looking Through a One-Way Mirror at Lawyers’ Defence of Criminal Defendants in China.” In Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism. Edited by Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik, and Malcolm M. Feeley, pp. 65-107, Oxford, U.K: Hart Publishing, 2007. This chapter analyzes …
Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik, and Malcolm M. Feeley, eds. “The Legal Complex in Struggles for Political Liberalism.” In Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism, pp. 1-43, Oxford, U.K: Hart Publishing, 2007. This chapter examines whether lawyers and the broader “legal complex” serve as active agents in the …
John Ohnesorge, “Regulation of the Legal Profession in China,” China Law and Society Review, 2023. This article analyzes the historical evolution and regulation of the legal profession in China, from imperial times to the contemporary Xi Jinping era. It begins by examining the role of law and “proto lawyers” in imperial China, where legal intermediaries …
Kjersti Lohne. “Rescaling the Legal Complex: Lawyers and the Resilience of the Liberal International Order.” Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 50, no. 2 (2025): 598-617. This review article revisits “legal complex” literature to assess whether lawyers and related legal occupations can be relied upon to defend political liberalism during periods of democratic crisis. Drawing on …
Rogelio Pérez Perdomo. “The Venezuelan Legal Profession: Lawyers in an Inegalitarian Society.” In Lawyers in Society: An Overview, edited by Richard L. Abel and Philip S.C. Lewis, pp. 201-220. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. This chapter provides historical and socio-political context for understanding Venezuela’s legal and institutional development. It traces Venezuela’s trajectory from Spanish …
Pamela A. Jordan, Defending Rights in Russia: Lawyers, the State and Legal Reform in the Post-Soviet Era. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005. This study examines the transformation of the Russian bar (advokatura) after the collapse of the Soviet Union, focusing on how practicing lawyers and advocates redefined their professional identity and institutional role during democratic transition. …
The Washington Times reported on April 12 that senior DOJ officials themselves attribute the department’s growing courtroom difficulties to three compounding factors: the sheer volume of litigation (particularly immigration cases), an unprecedented wave of adverse judicial rulings, and decimated staffing at U.S. Attorneys’ offices across the country. A senior official described the removal of experienced …
CNN reported on April 11 that Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s public statements about Kilmar Abrego Garcia — a Salvadoran national whom the government wrongly deported to a mega-prison in El Salvador — may lead a federal judge to dismiss human smuggling charges against Abrego Garcia on grounds of vindictive prosecution. Blanche publicly linked Abrego …
A Bloomberg Law report from April 10, 2026 highlights a troubling pattern of errors and inaccuracies by U.S. Justice Department lawyers in federal courts, raising concerns among judges about the DOJ’s credibility. In March alone, DOJ attorneys disclosed relying on incorrect information in an immigration case in Manhattan, made inaccurate statements in a Rhode Island …