Ole Hammerslev - Böcker

The world’s legal professions have undergone dramatic changes in the 30 years since publication of the landmark three-volume Lawyers in Society, which launched comparative sociological studies of lawyers. This is the first of two volumes in which scholars from a wide range of disciplines, countries and cultures document and analyse those changes.The present volume presents reports on 46 countries, with broad coverage of North America, Western Europe, Latin America, Asia, Australia, North Africa and the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and former communist countries. These national reports address: the impact of globalisation and neoliberalism on national legal professions (the relationship of lawyers and their professional associations to the state and tensions between state and citizenship); changes in lawyer demography (rapidly growing numbers and the profession’s efforts to retain control, the entry of women and obstacles to full gender equality, ethnic diversity); legal education (the proliferation of institutions and pedagogic innovation); the regulation of lawyers; structures of production (especially the growth of large firms and the impact of technology and paraprofessionals); the distribution of lawyers across roles; and access to justice (state-funded legal aid and pro-bono services). The juxtaposition of the reports reveals the dramatic transformations of professional rationales, labour markets, and working practices and the multiple contingencies of the role of lawyers in societies experiencing increasing juridification within a new geopolitical order.

This book presents an invaluable collection of essays by eminent scholars from a wide variety of disciplines on the main issues currently confronting legal professions across the world.It does this through a comparative analysis of the data provided by the reports on 46 countries in its companion volume: Lawyers in 21st-Century Societies: Vol. 1: National Reports (Hart 2020). Together these volumes build on the seminal collection Lawyers in Society (Abel and Lewis 1988a; 1988b; 1989).The period since 1988 has seen an acceleration and intensification of the global socio-economic, cultural and political developments that in the 1980s were challenging traditional professional forms. Together with the striking transformation of the world order as a result of the fall of the Soviet bloc, neo-liberalism, globalisation, the financialisation of capitalism, technological innovations, and the changing demography of lawyers, these developments underscored the need for a new, comparative exploration of the legal professional field.This volume deepens the insights in volume 1, with chapters on legal professions in Africa, Latin America, the Islamic world, emerging economies, and former communist regimes. It also addresses theoretical questions, including the sociology of lawyers and other professions (medicine, accountancy), state production, the rule of law, regional bodies, large law firms, access to justice, technology, casualisation, cause lawyering, diversity (gender, race, and masculinity), corruption, ethics regulation, and legal education.Together with volume 1, it will inform and challenge conceptions of the contemporary profession, and stimulate and support further research.

Situating legal ethics in relation to classical sociology of law themes, this astute Research Handbook investigates ethics as a contested set of professional rules designed to protect clients and serve the public, revealing how they operate in action to shape lawyers’ relation to state and market power.Expert authors discuss how legal ethics can reflect and legitimate structural inequalities in the legal profession and wider society, exploring their institutionalization within specific social and political contexts. They assess the consequences of ethics enforcement on stratification and access to justice, as well as the influence of ethics in larger conflicts over democracy, authoritarianism, and the rule of law. The Research Handbook presents a broad range of global perspectives through empirical studies covering the institutionalization of legal ethics in South Africa, feminist lawyering in Turkey, the ethics of Christian lawyers in Australia, and the development of professional standards in European courts, among others. Based on this innovative work, the book provides a framework for understanding the sociology of legal ethics that distinguishes it from other research in the field by placing the social role of ethical rules and their enforcement at the centre of study.Scholars and students of law and society, legal ethics, sociology and sociological theory will greatly benefit from this compelling Research Handbook. Providing empirical insights into how lawyers understand and practice ethics in their daily work lives, and how ethics can serve to check abuses of government power, it is also an essential resource for practitioners and policymakers.

It brings together fourteen socio-legal scholars, representing Nordic and Western European countries, who analyse different aspects pertaining to European social rights, namely the regulation of social rights, encounters between welfare professionals and citizens, and citizens’ mobilisation of social rights.

It brings together fourteen socio-legal scholars, representing Nordic and Western European countries, who analyse different aspects pertaining to European social rights, namely the regulation of social rights, encounters between welfare professionals and citizens, and citizens’ mobilisation of social rights.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This edited collection provides a comprehensive analysis of the differences and similarities between civil legal aid schemes in the Nordic countries whilst outlining recent legal aid transformations in their respective welfare states.