Birgit Spiesshofer – författare

Lawyers face increasing pressure from clients, politicians, prospective hires, international and civil society organisations to act as gatekeepers: to reject certain clients or cases or mitigate their involvement. This can be at variance with the traditional role of lawyers to provide access to justice.This volume presents a systematic exploration of the gatekeeping debate. It discusses the key dimensions of gatekeeping, the risk of abuse of identifying lawyers with their clients in authoritarian regimes, the limits of partisan lawyering and the legal boundaries to representation. It also discusses the question of representation that may be in line with professional duties, but still be considered controversial based on soft law, moral or societal expectations. A key take away is that the gatekeeping discussion would benefit from the differentiation between whether a client deserves representation and how a lawyer should represent the client.The contributions are written by high profile academics and professionals from various jurisdictions around the globe, aiming to provide solid, multi-facetted, balanced and comprehensive guidance for lawyers, academic researchers, regulators, bar associations and law societies.

Lawyers face increasing pressure from clients, politicians, prospective hires, international and civil society organisations to act as gatekeepers: to reject certain clients or cases or mitigate their involvement. This can be at variance with the traditional role of lawyers to provide access to justice.This volume presents a systematic exploration of the gatekeeping debate. It discusses the key dimensions of gatekeeping, the risk of abuse of identifying lawyers with their clients in authoritarian regimes, the limits of partisan lawyering and the legal boundaries to representation. It also discusses the question of representation that may be in line with professional duties, but still be considered controversial based on soft law, moral or societal expectations. A key take away is that the gatekeeping discussion would benefit from the differentiation between whether a client deserves representation and how a lawyer should represent the client.The contributions are written by high profile academics and professionals from various jurisdictions around the globe, aiming to provide solid, multi-facetted, balanced and comprehensive guidance for lawyers, academic researchers, regulators, bar associations and law societies.

This fundamental work analyses the great variety of normative processes encompassed by the term ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ (CSR) and subjects them to a systematic and critical examination. Domestic and supranational legislation, international law and transnational private law instruments – supplemented and superseded by soft law and informal steering by private and public organisations – are the ‘smart mix’ from which a global order for enterprise responsibility is emerging. The author relates these processes to fundamental considerations on the conception of enterprise, the justification and scope of enterprise responsibility and public-private governance. She reveals that the informalization of norm-creation and its transfer to the executive and private actors raises fundamental questions of national sovereignty, democratic legitimation and rule of law. A new conception of ‘law’ is also required.