Behaviour of Legal Professionals and Institutional Context

Course in the Module "Legal Professions, Theory and Practice" (3 ECTS)

  The purpose of the course is to problematize the relationship between the behavior of legal professionals and institutional contexts. To this end, it proposes to reflect on the paradox: self-interest-socialization as determinants of behavior in specific institutional settings. At one end of the paradox, that of self-interest, the behavior of legal professionals would be guided by their own benefit, so that the structure of the profession would not be a determinant. At the other extreme, legal professionals would operate as exponents of the profession, of their professional socialization.  The starting point is the recognition that there are multiple legal professionals: from legal scholars to corporate lawyers, and from prosecutors and to judges to human rights defenders. In turn, these professionals operate in specific institutional environments: courts, prosecutors' offices, law firms, which operate as possibilities and restrictions for this conduct. To achieve this purpose, sociological approaches to the professions will be combined with institutional analysis to distinguish different mechanisms in operation that explain the links between legal professional behavior and institutional settings.

Contents

1.         Legal professions and professions

2.         Structures of the legal professions

3.         Inequalities in the legal professions (gender, race, class)

4.         Relationships between legal professions (the legal complex)

5.         Institutional contexts

6.         Behavior and institutions