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.
Evidence of Lawyers’ Resistance
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.