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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cause lawyering is a distinct form of legal practice shaped by the social and political context, particularly the dynamics between lawyers and their clients, which influences both its methods and the identities it produces.
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.
The article examines how personal motives and structural factors shaped lawyers’ involvement in the “Stop the Steal” campaign, revealing broader patterns of polarization and democratic erosion within the legal profession.
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.
The article argues that in Russia, collective action by criminal defense lawyers can drive social change during periods of crisis, but its effectiveness depends on the institutional strength of legal organizations and the stance of their professional elites.