The Paradox of Professionalism: Lawyers and the Possibility of Justice

Product Description This book is about the role of lawyers in constructing a just society. Its central objective is to provide a deeper understanding of the relationship between lawyers' commercial aims and public aspirations. Drawing on interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives, it explores whether lawyers can transcend self-interest to meaningfully contribute to systems of political accountability, ethical advocacy, and distributional fairness. Its contributors, some of the world's leading scholars of the legal profession, offer evidence that although justice is possible, it is never complete. Ultimately, how much - and what type of - justice prevails depends on how lawyers respond to, and reshape, the political and economic conditions in which they practice. As the essays demonstrate, the possibility of justice is diminished as lawyers pursue self-regulation in the service of power; it is enhanced when lawyers mobilize - in the political arena, workplace, and law school - to contest it. Book Description Drawing on interdisciplinary and comparative research on lawyers, this volume explores whether and how lawyers, in the face of intense market pressures, may transcend their own self-interest to meaningfully contribute to systems of political accountability, ethical advocacy, and distributional fairness. Its contributors, some of the world's leading scholars of the legal profession, offer evidence that although justice is possible, it is never complete. About the Author Scott Cummings is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is also the faculty coordinator of the Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy. He specializes in the legal profession, law and social change and economic development.