Kathryn Hendley, Do Lawyers Matter in Russia?, 2021 Wis. L. Rev. 301 (2021).
Abstract
As the transmission belt between citizens and their government, lawyers are a critical component of civil society. Yet their relevance depends on society’s willingness to call upon them and on the state’s openness to being challenged. In the U.S., we take the political importance of lawyers for granted. Elsewhere, especially in authoritarian countries, lawyers play a more peripheral role. This Essay focuses on Russian lawyers. Although there is a large literature on various types of Russian lawyers, their status in society has not been much explored. The Essay tracks the evolution in societal attitudes towards lawyers in Russia, beginning with the Soviet period (1917–1991) and continuing through the post-Soviet period (1992–present). Drawing on memoirs, public opinion polling, and surveys, the Essay documents lawyers’ low status in the Soviet Union. The introduction of market institutions in post-Soviet Russia opened the door to new types of lawyering, many of which are highly remunerated. The effect has been to increase the attractiveness of the profession to Russian youth and their parents and increase its esteem more generally.
