This article explores the underexamined role of lawyers operating within manifestly unjust procedural regimes, particularly in the context of liberal democracies under internal stress.
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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.
Varga (2013), “Legal Mentality as a Component of Law. Rationality Driven Into Anarchy in America”
This article critiques the mythologized self-image of lawyers as neutral experts, arguing that in the absence of broader societal consensus, their function becomes both overextended and ideologically fraught, raising urgent questions about the legitimacy and limits of legal authority in postmodern, fragmented democratic societies.
Moran (2019), “The Three Ages of Modern American Lawyering and the Current Crisis in the Legal Profession and Legal Education”
The article calls for renewed attention to the civic and justice-oriented dimensions of legal training and leadership.
Ashar (2016), “Deep Critique and Democratic Lawyering in Clinical Practice”
This article critiques mainstream legal education reform discourse for neglecting social justice values and embracing neoliberal frameworks.
Khalikova and Kazun (2021), “Should I Stay, or Should I Go? Self-Legitimacy of Attorneys in an Authoritarian State”
This study investigates the professional challenges faced by lawyers in authoritarian regimes.