Edward L. Rubin. “The Varieties Of Judicial Independence And The Judiciary’s Role In Political Reform.” In The Legal Process and the Promise of Justice: Studies Inspired by the Work of Malcolm Feeley. Edited by Rosann Greenspan, Hadar Aviram, and Jonathan Simon, pp. 335-360. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2019. This chapter highlights the crucial role …
Mark Fathi Massoud. “The Legal Profession’s Promise Of Justice: Choices And Challenges In Legal And Socio-Legal Work.” In The Legal Process and the Promise of Justice: Studies Inspired by the Work of Malcolm Feeley. Edited by Rosann Greenspan, Hadar Aviram, and Jonathan Simon, pp. 314-334. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2019. This chapter examines the …
Jin Dong and Qian Cheng. “The Rise of Private Public Interest Lawyers in China.” In Global Pro Bono: Causes, Context, and Contestation. Edited by Scott L. Cummings, Fabio de Sa e Silva, Louise G. Trubek, pp. 672-705, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2025. Although pro bono lacks a single standardized definition, it has become increasingly …
Terence C. Halliday, Lucien Karpik, and Malcolm M. Feeley, eds. “The Legal Complex in Struggles for Political Liberalism.” In Fighting for Political Freedom: Comparative Studies of the Legal Complex and Political Liberalism, pp. 1-43, Oxford, U.K: Hart Publishing, 2007. This chapter examines whether lawyers and the broader “legal complex” serve as active agents in the …
Kjersti Lohne. “Rescaling the Legal Complex: Lawyers and the Resilience of the Liberal International Order.” Law & Social Inquiry, vol. 50, no. 2 (2025): 598-617. This review article revisits “legal complex” literature to assess whether lawyers and related legal occupations can be relied upon to defend political liberalism during periods of democratic crisis. Drawing on …
Yves Dezalay and Bryant G. Garth. “State Politics and Legal Markets.” Comparative Sociology, vol. 10, no. 1 (2011): 38-66. This article critiques dominant literature on the legal profession for overlooking deeper structural and sociological questions, particularly those concerning the role of elite lawyers in shaping state and economic power. Rather than focusing narrowly on the …
Steve Bachmann. “Lawyers, Law and Social Change.” N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change, vol. 13, no. 1 (1984): 1-50. This article explores the complex relationship between lawyers, law, and social change, raising a central question for both legal professionals and activists: can law serve as a meaningful tool in the pursuit of justice? The …
Kathryn Hendley. “Legal Dualism as a Framework for Analyzing the Role of Law Under Authoritarianism.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science, vol. 18, no. 1 (2022): 211-226. This article reexamines Ernst Fraenkel’s concept of the dual state, proposing the idea of legal dualism as a useful framework for understanding law under authoritarianism. Legal dualism …
Tamir Moustafa. “Law and Courts in Authoritarian Regimes.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science, vol. 10, (2014): 281–299. This article surveys emerging research on the role of courts in authoritarian regimes, challenging earlier assumptions that they function solely as instruments of repression. It highlights how courts can serve as tools of governance, shape interactions …
Julio Ríos-Figueroa, Paloma Aguilar, “Justice Institutions in Autocracies: A Framework for Analysis.” Democratization, vol. 25, no. 1 (2017): 1–18. Summary: What role do justice institutions play in autocracies? The authors bring together the literatures on authoritarian political institutions and on judicial politics to create a framework to answer this question. They start from the premise …