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.
This article reviews two recent books that examine the evolving role of law and legal activism under authoritarian rule in China and Hong Kong.
This article challenges the common view that Chinese lawyers are either dissident activists or politically disengaged professionals by focusing on a third category: lawyers who work closely with the state while still engaging in governance.
This article examines how the Chinese state manages and shapes the legal profession in ways that support authoritarian rule, using mechanisms of professional socialization rather than relying solely on repression.
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.
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.
Ann Southworth. “Lawyers and the Conservative Counterrevolution.” Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 43, no. 4 (2018): 1698–1728. This article analyzes how the conservative legal movement in the United States has successfully mobilized lawyers, organizations, and financial backers to reshape the legal and political landscape, contributing to a broader democratic backsliding. It highlights how conservative and …
This article examines how conservative lawyers have strategically shaped the legal profession and political landscape in the United States, contributing to democratic backsliding by promoting ideologies that concentrate legal power within partisan movements.
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.
This article examines the marginalized yet politically potent fringe of the legal profession—lawyers who neither represent commercial interests nor serve as state functionaries, but who dedicate their practice to advancing the interests of the poor and disenfranchised.
This work explores the American legal profession’s historical tendency to resist reform, particularly in moments of crisis that threaten its identity or institutional norms.