This page highlights instances of lawyers’ resistance within the legal profession, showcasing how attorneys have historically and currently challenged unjust systems, fought for civil rights, and stood up against political and social oppression. By exploring key moments of defiance and advocacy, it reveals how lawyers use their unique position to resist laws or policies that undermine justice, equality, and democracy. This collection underscores the critical role lawyers play not only in upholding the rule of law but also in pushing for change and holding powerful institutions accountable when the legal system itself is in need of reform.
Mather & Levin (2022). “When and Why Do Lawyer Organizations Seek to Influence Law?”
Mather, Lynn and Levin, Leslie C., When and Why Do Lawyer Organizations Seek to Influence Law? (2022). Lawyers in 21st Century Societies: Volume 2 (2022), University at Buffalo School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper …
Khalil (2024). “This Country has Laws”: Legalism as a Tool of Entrenching Autocracy in Egypt.
Khalil, H. M. (2024). “This Country has Laws”: Legalism as a Tool of Entrenching Autocracy in Egypt. American Behavioral Scientist, 68(12), 1597-1615. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642241267936 (Original work published 2024) This article investigates the role of legalism …
Cummings (2025). “The Autocratic Legal Playbook”.
Cummings, Scott L., The Autocratic Legal Playbook (August 14, 2025). UCLA Law Review, Forthcoming, UCLA School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 25-31, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5392409 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5392409 This Article examines the development and rapid innovation …
Batesmith & McEvoy. (2025). “Closeted” cause lawyering in authoritarian Cambodia.
Batesmith, A., & McEvoy, K. (2025). “Closeted” cause lawyering in authoritarian Cambodia. Law & Society Review, 59(3), 463–495. doi:10.1017/lsr.2025.29 Using Cambodia as a case study, this article examines cause lawyering in a repressive political environment. It focuses …
Babakhani (2023). Agents of Change or Agents of the Status Quo: Iranian Lawyers’ Approaches to Women Seeking Divorce in the Context of Discriminatory Divorce Law
Babakhani, A. (2023). Agents of Change or Agents of the Status Quo: Iranian Lawyers’ Approaches to Women Seeking Divorce in the Context of Discriminatory Divorce Law (Doctoral dissertation, University of Delaware). Summary: Since the 1979 …
Wang (2020), “Pre-Empting Court-Civil Society Synergy: How China Balances Judicial Autonomy and Legal Activism”
This article examines the evolving stance of Chinese administrations towards judicial autonomy and legal activism over the past two decades.
Pei (2010), “Rights and Resistance: The Changing Contexts of the Dissident Movement”
This chapter explores how rapid economic growth and legal reforms in China have reshaped the dissident movement by creating new political and legal spaces for rights assertion.
Borsuk, Dinç, Kavak, and Sayan (2021), “Consolidating and Contesting Authoritarian Neoliberalism in Turkey: Towards a Framework”
This chapter examines Turkey’s transformation from a hopeful democratic state to a key example of democratic backsliding under the Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Ryo (2016), “Fostering Legal Cynicism Through Immigration Detention”
This article examines how immigration detention in the United States under a hardline enforcement regime, especially during the Trump administration, serves not merely as an administrative tool but as a socio-legal mechanism that fosters legal cynicism among detained noncitizens.
Bugaric (2019), “Can Law Protect Democracy? Legal Institutions as ‘Speed Bumps’”
This article investigates how political lawyers in Russia resist emerging authoritarian practices such as disinformation, surveillance, and state secrecy.
Van der Vet (2021), “Spies, Lies, Trials, and Trolls: Political Lawyering Against Disinformation and State Surveillance in Russia”
This article investigates how political lawyers in Russia navigate and resist authoritarian tactics such as disinformation campaigns, government surveillance, and secrecy.
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.
Pavone (2020), “Lawyers, Judges, And The Obstinate State: The French Case And An Agenda For Comparative Politics”
This article revisits the classic thesis of France as an “obstinate state,” known for the resilience of its centralized authority, by showing how lawyers and judges have quietly shaped political development in ways that challenge this narrative.
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.
Khan and Cheesman (2023), “Law, Lawyers and Legal Institutions”
For attorneys in backsliding democracies, this chapter offers a sobering reflection on the limits of legalism and the complex relationship between law, legitimacy, and power.
Andreetta (2024), “A Broken Trust: Defence Lawyers and the Beninese State”
This article investigates how defense lawyers in Benin navigate a shifting political landscape marked by democratic backsliding and increasing judicial bias.
Rosenbaum, Hubbard, Sharp-Bauer, and Tushaus (2021), “The Myanmar Shwe: Empowering Law Students, Teachers, And The Community Through Clinical Education And The Rule Of Law”
This article explores the reform of legal education in Myanmar during a brief period of political opening, focusing on the role of clinical legal education (CLE) in empowering future lawyers under conditions of ongoing authoritarian legacy.
Mason and Cheesman (2023), “Land and Law Between Reform and Revolution”
This chapter explores how land law in Myanmar functions as a tool of governance, dispossession, and contestation, particularly during the semi-civilian government of the 2010s and in the wake of the 2021 military coup.
Chua (2022), The Politics of Rights and Southeast Asia
This book introduces the politics of rights as a socio-legal framework for understanding how rights are mobilized, contested, and reshaped in the culturally and politically complex region of Southeast Asia.
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.
Barzilai (2015), “Can Government Lawyers Save Us? A Comment on Lawyering for the Rule of Law”
This article reflects on the global expansion of judicial review, emphasizing how courts—both in liberal and non-liberal democracies—strategically position themselves in shaping public policy.
Feely (2015), “An Introduction to Lawyering for the Rule of Law”
This article introduces a symposium on Yoav Dotan’s Lawyering for the Rule of Law: Government Lawyers and the Rise of Judicial Power in Israel, a landmark study of how state attorneys can both constrain and enable government power.
Benny, Veitch, Hualing, and Cullen (2020), “Pursuing Democracy In An Authoritarian State: Protest And The Rule Of Law In Hong Kong”
This article examines the Occupy Central (OC) trial in Hong Kong as a pivotal moment in the legal and political struggle against authoritarian backsliding.
Prempeh (2000), “Lawyers and Liberal Democracy.”
This analysis revisits Alexis de Tocqueville’s reflections on the essential role lawyers play in sustaining liberal democracy, especially in guarding against the excesses of majoritarian rule.
Barrow (2022), “Beyond the Courtroom: Lawyer Activism and Resistance in Hong Kong”
This chapter explores the critical role attorneys play as defenders of the rule of law in backsliding democracies, using Hong Kong as a case study.
Wang (2025), “The Legality Trap: Legal Cooptation Under Authoritarianism”
This study explores how legal advocacy in authoritarian China shapes environmental social movements by channeling their efforts into less radical, more state-aligned paths.
Moustafa (2007), “The Politics of Domination: Law and Resistance in Authoritarian States”
This article argues that entrenched authoritarian regimes strengthen judicial institutions to consolidate power by attracting investment, enforcing bureaucratic discipline, maintaining elite coalitions, and legitimizing controversial reforms.
Pangaribuan (2024), “Navigating an Authoritarian Landscape: Criminal procedure and Defence Lawyers in Indonesia”
This article examines the challenges faced by defense lawyers operating within Indonesia’s authoritarian legal system.
Lai (2025), Legal Resistance Under Authoritarianism: The Struggle for the Rule of Law in Hong Kong
This book examines the erosion of Hong Kong’s rule of law amid growing authoritarian control by China.
Givens (2011), “Advocates Of Change In Authoritarian Regimes: How Chinese Lawyers And Chinese And Russian Journalists Stay Out Of Trouble”
In backsliding democracies, this research shows that lawyers remain key actors in the struggle for political change.
McEvoy and Bryson (2022), “Boycott, Resistance and the Law: Cause Lawyering in Conflict and Authoritarianism”
This article explores how cause lawyers operate in authoritarian or conflicted settings where legal outcomes are often predetermined and victories are rare.
Lee (2014), “Law as a Contested Terrain Under Authoritarianism”
This article reviews two recent books that examine the evolving role of law and legal activism under authoritarian rule in China and Hong Kong.
McCarthy and Mustafina (2024), “A Measure of Justice: Citizen Legal Advocates, Lay Lawyering, and Access to Justice in Russia”
This article explores how access to justice can be expanded in an authoritarian setting like Russia through the use of citizen legal advocates (CLAs)—ordinary citizens without formal legal education who represent defendants in criminal and administrative cases.
Mustafina (2022), “Turning on the Lights? Publicity and Defensive Legal Mobilization in Protest‐Related Trials in Russia”
This article examines how defense lawyers in contemporary Russia strategically use publicity in trials involving protesters, despite the broader context of a politicized and often predetermined legal system.
Dorf and Chu (2018), “Lawyers as Activists: From the Airport to the Courtroom”
This article highlights the crucial role lawyers played in resisting authoritarian-leaning actions during a period of democratic backsliding in the United States, specifically under the Trump administration.
Sinnar (2017), “Human Rights, National Security, and the Role of Lawyers in the Resistance”
This article examines the role of lawyers in resisting democratic backsliding and authoritarian policymaking in the United States, particularly during the Trump administration.
Pils (2014), China’s Human Rights Lawyers: Advocacy and Resistance
This book provides a powerful analysis of the role of human rights lawyers operating within an authoritarian legal regime, focusing on China.
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.
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.
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.
Meiertöns (2014), “An International Lawyer in Democracy and Dictatorship–Re-Introducing Herbert Kraus”
This article illustrates the dilemma lawyers face in authoritarian regimes—balancing resistance and survival—and highlights their potential role in both confronting and later rebuilding the rule of law.
Ahmend (2012), “The Rule Of Law–A Substratum Of Justice: The Lawyers’movement And Its Impacts On Legal & Political Governance Of Pakistan”
This article explores how the lawyers’ movement in Pakistan serves as a critical force for restoring the rule of law and reinforcing judicial independence in a context of democratic backsliding.
Israël (2005), “From Cause Lawyering to Resistance: French Communist Lawyers in the Shadow of History (1929-1945)”
This chapter explores how the AJI engaged in international campaigns against fascism and repression, using legal analysis, public advocacy, and symbolic trials to advance their cause.
Weizman (2015), “Cause Lawyering and Resistance in Israel: The Legal Strategies of Adalah”
This articel argues that while the law’s capacity for political change is limited, it remains a vital tool for exposing systemic contradictions and advancing resistance amid tensions between submission and subversion.
Meili (1998), “Cause Lawyers and Social Movements: A Comparative Perspective on Democratic Change in Argentina and Brazil”
This chapter examines how cause lawyers in Argentina and Brazil have engaged with grassroots social movements amid transitions from military rule to democratic consolidation.
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.
Tam (2018), “Political Transition and the Rise of Cause Lawyering: The Case of Hong Kong”
This article analyzes how cause lawyering emerged and thrived in Hong Kong under authoritarian conditions.
Hajjar (2001), “From The Fight For Legal Rights To The Promotion Of Human Rights: Israeli And Palestinian Cause Lawyers In The Trenches Of Globalization”
This chapter examines how Israeli and Palestinian cause lawyers have helped build a human rights movement focused on the Occupied Territories.
Lee (2017), “Lawyers And Hong Kong’s Democracy Movement: From Electoral Politics To Civil Disobedience”
This article examines the pivotal role of Hong Kong lawyers in the pro-democracy movement.
Woods and Barclay (2008), “Cause Lawyers As Legal Innovators With And Against The State: Symbiosis Or Opposition?”
This article challenges the traditional view of cause lawyers as inherently oppositional and leftist actors standing against a singular, monolithic state.
Tam (2012), Legal Mobilization under Authoritarianism: The Case of Post-Colonial Hong
This article explores the dynamics of legal mobilization under authoritarian regimes, using post-colonial Hong Kong as a case study.
Cummings (2006), “Mobilisation Lawyering: Community Economic Development In The Figueroa Corridor”
This article reevaluates the relationship between cause lawyering and community mobilization, highlighting both the continuities and shifts from traditional CED practices toward more adversarial and politically engaged lawyering.
Sarat and Scheingold (1998), Cause Lawyering: Political Commitments and Professional Responsibilities
This book is a cross-national study of lawyers who devote themselves to serving political causes.
Boukalas (2013), “Politics as Legal Action/Lawyers as Political Actors: Towards a Reconceptualisation of Cause Lawyering”
This article examines the ‘resolutions movement,’ a popular political mobilization led by lawyers that operates through legal discourse and targets legal objectives as a form of resistance to contemporary US counterterrorism policies.
Rogers (2005), “Power to Law: It’s Not as Bad as All That”
This book examines how legal practitioners can both enable and resist democratic erosion, depending on how they interpret, wield, or subvert the law.
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.
Arend (2002), “International Law and Rogue States: The Failure of the Charter Framework”
In backsliding democracies facing such state behavior—whether through repression, abuse of power, or militarized actions—attorneys play a critical role as defenders of legal order and democratic accountability.
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.
Khalil (2023), “‘We Belong to the Streets’: Lawyers and Social Movements in Post-Revolution Egypt”
This chapter argues that in authoritarian and transitional contexts like Egypt, the evolving precarity of the legal profession transforms cause lawyers into adaptive, embedded actors who blend legal advocacy with grassroots activism to resist repression and support social movements.
Ignacio Fradejas-García and Kristín Loftsdóttir (2024), “Mobility Cause Lawyering: Contesting Regimes of (im)mobility in the Canary Islands Migration Route to Europe”
This article examines how cause lawyers and allied actors collectively resist restrictive EU migration policies during the Canary Islands crisis by strategically using legal and human rights tools to challenge exclusionary practices.
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.
Abbas (2021), “Lawyers’ Movement For The Renaissance Of The Independent Judiciary In Pakistan”
The article highlights how Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry’s challenge to military dominance in Pakistan sparked a nationwide lawyers’ movement that ultimately restored judicial independence and reshaped the country’s constitutional landscape.
Myint (2014), Legal Hybridity: Rule of Law Under Authoritarianism
The article explains how authoritarian regimes like Singapore exhibit legal hybridity by using law both to strengthen control and to limit their own power, blending elements of rule of law and rule by law.
Park (2022), “First Amendment and the Rule of Law: Lawyers and Their Duty to Democracy”
The article explores the legal and ethical consequences for lawyers defending disputed election claims, proposing a new framework to balance First Amendment rights with professional responsibilities.
Aral (2024), “International Lawyers as Hope Mongers: How Did We Come to Believe That Democracy Was Here to Stay?”
The article argues that current fears of democratic decline arise from unrealistic expectations rooted in Cold War-era progress narratives that presumed inevitable democratic consolidation.
McEvoy (2019), “Cause Lawyers, Political Violence, and Professionalism in Conflict”
The article examines how cause lawyers in authoritarian and conflict-affected societies balance legal professionalism with political commitment, using interviews and the concept of "legitimation work" to reveal evolving roles shaped by violence and transition.
Khan (2023), “The Lawyers’ Movement in Pakistan: How Legal Actors Mobilise in a Hybrid Regime”
The article argues that in Pakistan’s hybrid regime, lawyer-leaders and political parties, rather than courts alone, played a crucial role in judicial restoration, challenging traditional legal mobilization theories based on political liberalism.
Cheesman and Min (2013), “Not Just Defending; Advocating for Law in Myanmar”
Cause lawyers in Myanmar use legal formality to promote justice and public accountability, challenging state power, but persistent impunity undermines trust in the law’s effectiveness.
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.
Munir (2009), “Struggling for the Rule of Law: The Pakistani Lawyers’ Movement”
The 2007 Lawyers’ Movement in Pakistan marked a pivotal push for rule of law and democratic reform, as lawyers mobilized against authoritarian overreach and succeeded in restoring judicial independence.
Parslow (2018), “Lawyers against the Law: The Challenge of Turkish Lawyering Associations
Despite increasing authoritarian control over the judiciary, Turkish activist lawyers such as the Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği strategically engage with the legal system as a form of grassroots resistance that challenges and redefines state-imposed legal boundaries.
Gobe and Salaymeh (2016), “Tunisia’s “Revolutionary” Lawyers: From Professional Autonomy to Political Mobilization”
Tunisian lawyers played a key role in the 2011 uprising and its aftermath, using political lawyering to gain symbolic influence and act as watchdogs over the new government.
Batesmith and Stevens (2018), “In the Absence of the Rule of Law: Everyday Lawyering, Dignity and Resistance in Myanmar’s ‘Disciplined Democracy'”
In Myanmar’s authoritarian legal system, everyday lawyers resist state power by preserving client dignity, offering subtle defiance where rule of law is absent.
Shafqat (2019), “Civil Society and the Lawyers’ Movement of Pakistan”
This article analyzes how lawyers drove Pakistan’s 2007–2009 judicial movement, but civil society’s framing made its democratic impact possible.
Ghias (2010), “Miscarriage of Chief Justice: Judicial Power and the Legal Complex in Pakistan under Musharraf”
The article explores how Pakistan's judiciary expanded its power under Musharraf, with lawyers and judges resisting regime control through public interest litigation.
Berkman (2010), “The Pakistani Lawyers’ Movement and the Popular Currency of Judicial Power”
This article explores how Pakistan's lawyer-led movement challenged dictatorship and reshaped judicial power and political engagement.
Abel (2023), How Autocrats Attack Expertise: Resistance to Trump and Trumpism
This book explores Trump’s attacks on expertise and truth, highlighting the resistance from professionals defending integrity against his autocratic tactics.
Abel (2023), How Autocrats Abuse Power: Resistance to Trump and Trumpism
This book examines Trump’s autocratic tactics and the resistance from various sectors that defended liberal democracy.
Abel (2024), How Autocrats Seek Power: Resistance to Trump and Trumpism
This book examines Trump’s attempts to subvert democracy and the various forms of resistance that defended liberal democracy against the threat of autocracy.
Abel (2025), How Autocrats Subvert Elections: Resistance to Trump and Trumpism
This book examines the January 6 insurrection and efforts to overturn the 2020 election, focusing on legal, political, and civic resistance to Trump’s autocratic actions.
Abel (2025), How Autocrats Are Held Accountable: Resistance to Trump and Trumpism
This book documents the legal and political battles against Trump and his supporters’ autocratic actions, analyzing lawsuits, prosecutions, and broader resistance efforts in defense of American democracy.
Morris (2020), Legal Sabotage: Ernst Fraenkel in Hitler’s Germany
This biography traces Ernst Fraenkel’s legal resistance to the Nazi regime, highlighting his defense of political dissidents and underground activism that shaped his seminal work.
Schaaf (2021), Litigating the Authoritarian State: Lawful Resistance and Judicial Politics in the Middle East
An examination of how citizens in Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine use law to resist authoritarianism, revealing that courts can serve as tools of accountability even under repressive regimes.
Mann (2024), Defending Legal Freedoms in Indonesia: The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation and Cause Lawyering in an Age of Democratic Decline
This book explores how Indonesia’s leading legal aid organization, YLBHI, has used cause lawyering to resist authoritarianism, navigate democratic setbacks, and defend legal freedoms amid growing threats to democracy.
McEvoy, Mallinder, and Bryson (2022), Lawyers in Conflict and Transition
This book examines how lawyers in post-conflict and authoritarian states navigate repressive legal systems, weighing ethical obligations and risks as they choose to challenge or comply with injustice.
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.
Glušac (2020), “Strengthening Ombudspersons in Central and Eastern Europe”
YUCOM used international review to challenge Serbia’s ombudsperson for lacking independence and competence.
Krishnan and Ajagbe (2018), “Legal Activism in the Face of Political Challenges: The Nigerian Case”
Rights-based lawyering in post-authoritarian democracies like Nigeria often builds on the foundations of legal activism developed under past authoritarian regimes, highlighting the continuity of legal resistance across political transitions.
Dixon and Isaacharoff (2016), “Living to Fight Another Day: Judicial Deferral in Defense of Democracy”
Lawyers play a crucial role in upholding judicial independence, as shown in Pakistan’s 2007 movement, where their collective action helped restore a removed chief justice and reinforced the judiciary’s power against executive overreach.
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.
Schatz (2006), “Access by Accident: Legitimacy Claims and Democracy Promotion in Authoritarian Central Asia”
Pro-democracy advocates consisted of both international organizations and local activists, including lawyers, journalists, and politicians, who worked to challenge authoritarian regimes and promote democratic values.
Cummings (2024), “Lawyers in Backsliding Democracy”
This article argues that lawyers can be key agents of democratic backsliding, using legal tools to erode institutions and legitimize autocracy, and calls for reforms to strengthen the profession’s role in defending democracy.
Scheppele (2018), “Autocratic Legalism”
In backsliding democracies where autocrats manipulate legal systems to entrench power, attorneys play a crucial dual role as defenders of constitutionalism and civic educators, documenting abuses, challenging authoritarian legal reforms, and empowering the public to recognize and resist the legalistic tools of autocracy.
Rosenzweig (2013), “Disappearing Justice: Public Opinion, Secret Arrest and Criminal Procedure Reform in China”
In February 2011, Chinese authorities detained numerous online activists and rights lawyers to suppress potential Arab Spring. This inspired unrest, using harsh interrogation and intimidation tactics, which later sparked public debate and legal critique over China's criminal procedure laws.
Michalowski (1995), “Between Citizens and the Socialist State: The Negotiation of Legal Practice in Socialist Cuba”
An examination of both the relationship between the ideological and legal bases for the socialist practice of law in Cuba and the actual practice of law in one bufete colectivo.
Chua (2019), “Legal Mobilization and Authoritarianism”
An examination of legal power in the lens that authoritarianism is all over.
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