Cause Lawyers, Political Violence, and Professionalism in Conflict. (6th November 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: McEvoy, Kieran
• Is Part Of: Journal of law and society. Volume 46:Number 4(2019)
• Page Start: 529
• Page End: 558
• Publication Date: 2019-11-06
• Subjects: Sociological jurisprudence -- Periodicals; 340
• DOI: 10.1111/jols.12188
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0263-323X

Abstract

Abstract : This article examines how cause lawyers in conflicted and authoritarian societies balance their professional responsibilities as lawyers with their commitment to a political cause. It is drawn from extensive interviews with both lawyers and political activists in a range of societies. It focuses on the challenges for lawyers in managing relations with violent politically‐motivated clients and their movements. Using the notion of 'legitimation work', it seeks to examine the complex, fluid, and contingent understandings of legal professionalism that is developed in such contexts, offering three overlapping 'ideal types' of cause lawyers in order to better understand the meaning of legal professionalism in such sites: (a) struggle lawyers (b) human rights activists and (c) a 'pragmatic moral community'. The article concludes by re‐examining how law is imagined in the legitimation work of cause lawyers in such settings and how that work is remembered in the transition from violence.