This page analyzes the ethics and professional responsibility of lawyers during times of democratic uncertainty, delving into philosophical considerations about what is truly ethical and where a lawyer’s duties lie. It explores the complex questions lawyers face when navigating shifting political landscapes and societal challenges, asking what actions they should take to uphold justice, fairness, and the rule of law. By examining moral dilemmas and professional obligations, this page offers insights into the delicate balance lawyers must strike between personal conscience, client advocacy, and their broader role in safeguarding democracy.
Levin (2025), “The Use of State Discipline to Sanction Attorneys General and Other High-Ranking Legal Officers”
Levin, Leslie C., The Use of State Discipline to Sanction Attorneys General and Other High-Ranking Legal Officers (November 15, 2025). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5753303 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5753303 The United States Attorney General, state attorneys general, and high-ranking officials in …
Kroncke (2025). “Legal Complicity in an Age of Resurgent Authoritarianism”.
Kroncke, J. J. (2025). Legal Complicity in an Age of Resurgent Authoritarianism. Geo. J. Legal Ethics, 38, 75. Faith in end of history narratives emergent at the end of the twentieth century carried powerful ethical implications for …
Berenson (2000), “Public Lawyers, Private Values: Can, Should, and Will Government Lawyers Serve the Public Interest?”
This article defends the notion that government lawyers have heightened responsibilities to serve the public interest, especially within the unique context of government litigation.
Billig (1985), “The Lawyer Terrorist and His Comrades”
This article explores the transformation of Horst Mahler, a young German lawyer, into a founding member of the Red Army Faction—a far-left terrorist group active in West Germany during the 1970s.
O’Brien (2023), “Neither Withdrawal Nor Resistance: Adapting to Increased Repression in China”
In the face of growing repression in China, some lawyers, along with pastors and NGOs, are navigating authoritarian constraints not through resistance but through strategic accommodation.
Roiphe (2019), “A Typology of Justice Department Lawyers’ Roles and Responsibilities”
This article examines the evolving role of U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers under the Trump administration, amid increasing concerns over democratic backsliding.
Sampford (2003), “Get New Lawyers!”
This article explores the ethical dilemmas faced by legal advisors and political actors in high-stakes international conflicts, using the Kosovo war as a case study.
Eberbach (2023), “Human Rights Legal Education in Times of Transition: Perspectives and Practices of Law Instructors in Myanmar”
This article presents a mixed-methods study of human rights education and training (HRET) among law educators in Myanmar during the country’s democratic transition, which was abruptly halted by the 2021 military coup.
Kim (2023), “Reimagining the Lawyer’s Duty to Uphold the Rule of Law”
This article critiques the prevailing view within the legal profession that lawyers fulfill their duty to uphold the rule of law simply by complying with formal legality.
Kroncke (2025), “Legal Complicity in an Age of Resurgent Authoritarianism”
This article critically examines the ethical and political assumptions that have shaped how liberal legal professionals, particularly in the United States, engage with authoritarian regimes.
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.
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.
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.
Cheh (2005), “Should Lawyers Participate in Rigged Systems: The Case of the Military Commissions”
This article examines whether lawyers should participate in legal proceedings that offer only the illusion of justice, potentially legitimizing a flawed system, or instead refuse involvement to preserve professional integrity.
Farbman (2019), “Resistance Lawyering”
The article invites contemporary lawyers to learn from this integration of daily legal work and political struggle as a model for resistance within unjust systems.
Godsoe, Smith, Yaroshefsky (2022), “Can You Be a Legal Ethics Scholar and Have Guts?”
The article also offers a framework for action, including filing disciplinary complaints and embracing a more publicly engaged model of legal ethics scholarship.
Kroncke (2025), “Legal Complicity in an Age of Resurgent Authoritarianism”
This article critiques the ethical assumptions underlying liberal legal professionals’ engagement with authoritarian regimes, particularly through the lens of modernization theory, which once promised that economic development would naturally lead to democratization.
Petrigh (2024), “Counseling Oppression”
This article critically examines the role of public defenders in counseling clients within a carceral system, highlighting how the act of legal counseling can simultaneously reinforce systemic oppression and serve as a site for resistance and transformation.
Ashar (2007), “Public Interest Lawyers and Resistance Movements”
This article examines how public interest lawyers engage with and support resistance movements that challenge the economic, political, and social consequences of globalization and neoliberalism.
Halliday, Karpik, Feeley (2007), Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism
This book explores the global role of lawyers and the broader “legal complex” as central actors in the struggle for political liberalism.
Brown (1938), Lawyers and the Promotion of Justice
This foundational study examines the legal profession in the United States as part of a broader inquiry into the roles and responsibilities of established and emerging professions.
Ebuara (2016), “The Pivotal Role of a Lawyer in Combating Official Corruption in Nigeria”
This article examines how lawyers—as judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys—may contribute to sustaining corruption, while also exploring their potential role as agents of social change.
Shamir and Chinski (1998), “Destruction of Houses and Construction of a Cause: Lawyers and Bedouins in the Israeli Courts”
This chapter highlights how lawyers navigate a complex legal and political landscape, using the law both to resist state power and to assert the rights of a vulnerable community within an authoritarian-leaning framework.
Baer (2019), “Democracy in Peril: A Call for Amici and Amicae Curiae and Critical Lawyering”
In the face of rising autocratic populism, this article underscores the vital role of critical lawyering in upholding the independence and integrity of constitutional courts, which are key pillars of democratic governance.
Graczyk (2024), “Postwar Convictions of Nazi Judges and Prosecutors for Their Activities in the Occupied Polish Territories (1939-1945)”
This article provides a synthetic overview of prior research into the postwar criminal convictions of lawyers, specifically judges and prosecutors, who operated in Nazi-occupied Polish territories.
Simpson (2008), “Warriors, Humanitarians, Lawyers: The Howard Government and the Use of Force”
In backsliding democracies or states engaged in controversial military actions, attorneys serve as key actors in holding governments accountable to international law, interpreting complex legal standards like the crime of aggression, and ensuring legal debates remain part of public discourse.
Turner (2002), “Intentional Targeting of Regime Elites: The Legal and Policy Debate”
This article highlights the complex legal and ethical challenges attorneys face when addressing state-sanctioned actions like targeted assassinations especially in the context of national security and counterterrorism.
Kazun and Yakovlev (2024), “Who Demands Collective Action in an Imperfect Institutional Environment? A Case Study of the Profession of Advocates in Russia”
This article examines how ethically driven Russian criminal defense lawyers, motivated by professional values and exposure to rights violations, could form a collective force to strengthen professional associations, push for legal reform, and hold law enforcement accountable within a deteriorating democratic system.
Crooke (2024), “Frustration and Fidelity: How Public Interest Lawyers Navigate Procedure in the Direct Representation of Asylum Seekers”
This study reveals how public interest lawyers strive to empower asylum seekers in Los Angeles despite facing significant challenges from a restrictive and politicized U.S. immigration system.
Nader (1995), “Lawyers and Law Students as Tools of Democracy”
The passage highlights that the true role of lawyers is to prevent injustice and promote democracy, elevating law from a trade to a profession.
Roznai (2013), “Revolutionary Lawyering? On Lawyers’ Social Responsibilities and Roles during a Democratic Revolution”
The article examines the dual and often conflicting roles of lawyers during revolutions, balancing their duty to uphold legal order with their responsibility to support revolutionary change and help shape new legal systems.
Halliday (1987), Beyond Monopoly: Lawyers, State Crises, and Professional Empowerment
Halliday argues that lawyers use their legal expertise to shape state responses to crises, stabilizing democratic institutions and adapting to political, legal, and fiscal challenges.
Oko (2009), “The Lawyer’s Role in a Contemporary Democracy, Promoting the Rule of Law, Lawyers in Fragile Democracies and the Challenges of Democratic Consolidation: The Nigerian Experience”
In fragile democracies, lawyers must help build and secure democratic institutions, a role best understood through context-specific analysis rather than abstract ideals.
Hutchinson (2008), “In the Public Interest’: The Responsibilities and Rights of Government Lawyers”
This article critiques the default assumption that government lawyers share the same ethical duties as private lawyers and proposes a new framework grounded in a democratic understanding of law and justice.
Rosen (2006), “Lessons on Lawyers, Democracy, and Professional Responsibility”
The article argues that lawyers have a professional responsibility to understand and support democracy, not because it is perfect, but because their role is essential to improving and sustaining it.
Titaev and Shkliaruk (2016), “Investigators in Russia: Who Creates Practice in the Investigation of Criminal Cases”
Analyzes the role of investigators in the Russian criminal justice process.
Goldstein (2022), “The Attorney’s Duty to Democracy: Legal Ethics, Attorney Discipline, and the 2020 Election”
An analysis of the roles that attorneys have played in facilitating democratic backsliding internationally to draw lessons for the American legal ethics regime.
Butler (2011), The Russian Legal Practitioner
Tracks the evolution of the legal profession in Russia. Includes a translation of the post-Soviet law on the legal profession.
Wald (2025), The Role of Lawyers in Mature Democracies When the Rule of Law is Under Attack
A deep dive into the argument for how lawyers, particularly in mature legal systems, must move beyond passive roles and actively defend the rule of law in response to growing threats to democratic principles.
Glendon (1996), A Nation Under Lawyers: How the Crisis in the Legal Profession Is Transforming American Society
Glendon outlines the changes within the legal system and offers her assessment of the people and ideas that are transforming our law-dependent culture.
- More Ethics and Professional Responsibility posts