The Knight First Amendment Institute invites submissions for a scholarly essay series, “Lawyering without Law: The Legal Profession in an Age of Authoritarianism.” This series is part of a broader project on the legal profession and authoritarianism, organized by the Knight Institute in partnership with our Senior Fellow Madhav Khosla. Authors will participate in a work-in-progress workshop in New York City on September 25-26, 2026, and the essays will be published on the Knight Institute’s website. A discussion of the themes the series will explore is below, followed by logistical information for those who wish to participate.

Description and Aims

The use and deployment of the law and the legal system has been a central feature of contemporary authoritarian populism in both the United States and elsewhere. We typically think of authoritarian regimes and of authoritarian transitions as being lawless, exemplified by events like a coup d'état. In our time, however, democratic backsliding finds expression through the working of ordinary legal rules and practices. Law is weaponized rather than jettisoned. The considerable writing that studies this phenomenon focuses on the relationship between authoritarian practices and legal rules and institutions.  It helps demonstrate that established forms of legality need not generate the outcomes that we associate with democratic constitutionalism.

For all the richness of contemporary conversations, however, we are yet to appreciate the role of the legal profession. Historically, one often thinks of the legal profession as being at the vanguard of social movements. There is a great deal of self-mythologizing of the profession—and, if one sees, for example, the anticolonial struggles of the mid-twentieth century or more recent examples like the Lawyers’ Movement in Pakistan (2007-2009), such self-mythologizing carries a certain truth. At the same time, the co-option of lawyers—and not merely of courts and judges—is noticeable in authoritarian contexts. Consider, for instance, the role that lawyers played during Bolsonaro’s populist phase in Brazil.

How can we better make sense of lawyers playing such a role? In modern democratic societies, there are certain commonplace assumptions about the rule of law that we take for granted, assumptions that are both substantive and procedural. Such assumptions rest, in turn, on the social legitimacy of law and on the nature of the legal profession. At critical junctions, however, the profession and its social function come under stress. Here, the background normative apparatus that frames our conception of law is at odds with the practices of lawyers. The following themes aim to shed light on the role of the legal profession during such periods.

I. The Professional Identity of Lawyers

In the first instance, we must ask what it means to be a lawyer. Our traditional conception of the professions views them as a protected class that mediates the relationship between the state and society. In the nineteenth century, for example, one viewed the principal check on capital to be the professions (rather than, say, the state). The self-identity of the professions, and their autonomy, rested on the notion of expertise and on a sense of their distinct role in society. In terms of the former, different professions had to create specific standards for credentialing—engineers, for instance, needed ways to distinguish themselves from artisans. The creation of standards shaped the creation of the profession. It meant the emergence of a body of knowledge that was distinctive, which in turn gave the profession monopoly power over a certain domain. In terms of the latter, professions had internal ethical standards linked to the logic of the concerned profession. The goals of medicine imposed certain responsibilities on being a doctor.

The adaptation of the legal profession in different political contexts—the way, say, in which the profession shifts from being a site of resistance to a vehicle for authoritarianism—requires examining shifts in the identity of the profession. What features of being a lawyer and of legal practice enable legal professionals to adapt to different structures of power? How have such features evolved historically? To what extent, for example, has the incorporation of lawyers into the capitalist class redefined the standard attorney as a transactional lawyer rather than a common law barrister? In what ways have shifts in the sociological composition of the profession altered its identity?

These inquiries will help illuminate the ethical and public demands associated with being a lawyer. The self-conception of lawyers relates, of course, to the role of law in society. Since the post-war period, this role has only grown. In what ways does the triumph of legality—the ballooning, all-encompassing role for law—shape the identity of the legal profession? Simply put, if lawyers are now central to a wide, disparate range of tasks and endeavors, does it contribute to the dilution of the distinct responsibility that falls upon the profession? Further, with regard to the factors that shape the identity of the legal profession, what role does legal education play? Insofar as legal education not only provides students with the relevant forms of expertise but also with the requisite ethical standards in the profession, and the link between those standards and the goals of the profession, how have changes in legal education contributed to changes in the self-conception of lawyers?

II. The Regulatory Framework

The legal profession is a profession and, like other professions in modern society such as doctors or accountants, it is subject to self-regulation. The regulation of the legal profession is the task of bar associations. What are the ways in which we should understand the strengths and limitations of self-regulation? Bodies like bar associations do not merely regulate the profession but also shape its goals and responsibilities: they determine the kind of knowledge that is appropriate to the profession, they make decisions about how to certify that one has the appropriate knowledge, they regulate the supply of the profession, and—crucially—they define what it means to behave professionally, as it were.

The self-regulation of the professions relates to an understanding that each profession is a repository of a distinct form of expertise, and each profession serves a distinct role in society. What self-regulation offers is a mechanism for such expertise to be appropriately preserved, and for each profession to retain its independence from other forces in society. To what extent, however, do existing self-regulatory frameworks satisfy these goals? What are the various ways in which these goals are undermined? Are traditional regulatory frameworks fundamentally at odds with other developments and demands in modern society?

In the specific context of studying different regime types, it is important to ask how bar associations succeed and fail at being useful tools of resistance to authoritarianism. Or, to pose the question differently, how do bar associations maintain their independence in the face of inhospitable political environments? The tasks involve both control over lawyers and the insulation of lawyers. Are specific disciplinary processes—such as processes for disbarment—effective? Are rules that govern and restrict the relationship between lawyers and other power centers in society meaningful? What might it mean for bar associations to have an apolitical character?

There are further questions one might ask about the internal governance structures of bar associations themselves. In situations of self-regulation, there is often considerable leeway and variance across how bodies internally regulate themselves. In constitutional democracies, the internal working of political parties is perhaps the most referenced example in this regard, but the same is true for professions like the legal profession. In terms of the internal functioning of bar associations, one might, for example, explore the extent to which the leadership of a bar association (in contrast to the full membership) shapes its professionalization and de-professionalization.

Goals and Output

These essays will focus on both historical and global trends, attempting to consider the legal profession amidst a range of authoritarian contexts. We aim to generate new scholarship that will galvanize members of the legal profession in the United States and abroad to reflect on their roles in defending the rule of law and democratic values at a time of encroaching authoritarianism, and help them be more effective at doing so.

This essay series is part of a larger Knight Institute project that will also include several public events with prominent jurists in winter 2026 and spring 2027, with exact dates to be announced. 

Dates, Deadlines, and Logistics

We are interested in papers that explore one or more of the questions outlined above. Proposals for theoretical, empirical, historical, and/or comparative work are all welcome. Those interested in participating should send an abstract (250-750 words, not including references) to [email protected] by December 5, 2025. Abstracts will be selected by Madhav Khosla, professor of law and political science at Columbia University and senior fellow at the Knight Institute, and Katy Glenn Bass, Research Director of the Knight Institute, with the assistance of other Institute staff and scholars. We anticipate selecting 10-12 final papers of 4-6,000 words, and will notify those selected to write by December 19, 2025. Those selected to write an essay will participate in a private work-in-progress workshop in New York City on September 25-26, 2026. The Knight Institute will cover travel expenses for the workshop. Authors will receive a payment of $6,000 after their essays have been published on the Knight Institute website, divided between co-authors as necessary.