Wendel, W. B. (2022). Lawyer shaming. U. Ill. L. Rev., 175. The Lincoln Project’s effort to shame law firms working on behalf of the Trump campaign is only the most recent example of the public criticism, even vilification, directed against lawyers who represent unpopular clients. The legal profession is mostly unified in its response, which appeals …
Litman, L. (2020). Lawyers’ Democratic Dysfunction. Drake L. Rev., 68, 303. As part of the symposium on Jack Balkin and Sandy Levinson’s Democracy and Dysfunction, this Article documents another source of the dysfunction that the authors observe-elite lawyers’ unwillingness to break ranks with other elite lawyers who participate in the destruction of various norms that are integral …
Holgado, B. G., & Urribarri, R. S. (2024). The Dark Side of Legalism: Abuse of the Law and Democratic Erosion in Argentina, Ecuador, and Venezuela. American Behavioral Scientist, 68(12), 1578-1596. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642241268332 (Original work published 2024) The article investigates why some elected leaders successfully employ legalistic strategies to erode democracy from within and under what conditions …
Michelson, E., & Li, K. (2012, May). Judicial performance without independence: the delivery of justice and political legitimacy in rural China. In Prepared for workshop on works-in-progress on Chinese law. The debate over whether weak judicial independence undermines judicial performance and regime legitimacy in authoritarian contexts remains unresolved. Using survey data from 23 Chinese villages in …
de Sa e Silva, Fabio de. “Autocratic Legalism 2.0: Insights from a Global Collaborative Research Project.” Verfassung Und Recht in Übersee / Law and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America 55, no. 4 (2022): 419–40. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27305889. Since the early 2000s, scholars have increasingly examined the phenomenon of democratic backsliding. While legal analysis was initially peripheral …
de Sa e Silva, F. (2020). From Car Wash to Bolsonaro: Law and lawyers in Brazil’s illiberal turn (2014–2018). Journal of Law and Society, 47(S1), S51–S73. https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12250 The article examines the role of law and lawyers in Brazil’s recent democratic decline. While legal professionals are often depicted as either victims of or counterforces …
Since the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan’s female judges and prosecutors have lived under constant threat. Once respected leaders, they are now forced into hiding, facing intimidation, violence, and social erasure. Many cannot seek medical care or work openly, and their pleas for asylum have gone unanswered. Despite petitions and UK relocation schemes, progress has …
The article Avoision: When Government Lawyers Turn the Sovereign Against Itself (Case Western Reserve Law Review, 2024) argues that when government lawyers engage in “avoision”—working at the edge of legality to help political superiors achieve their goals—they fundamentally betray their real client, which is the law itself. Richard W. Painter shows how practices such as …
Daniela Piana, Judicial Accountabilities in New Europe: From Rule of Law to Quality of Justice (1st ed.). London: Routledge, 2010. Summary: This volume focuses on a highly challenging aspect of all European democracies, namely the issue of combining guarantees of judicial independence and mechanisms of judicial accountability. It does so by filling the gap in European …
Thalia Gerzso,”Judicial resistance during electoral disputes: Evidence from Kenya.” Electoral Studies, vol.85 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2023.102653. Summary: Over the last decade, African courts have played an important role in the conduct of free and fair elections. In Kenya, the Supreme Court nullified the presidential election of the incumbent. These rulings challenge the conventional wisdom that courts in hybrid …