Clients, Norms and Egos: Constructs of Professionalism in Autobiographic Narratives of Russian Lawyers

Law and Social Inquiry. 2014.

Mrowczynski R.

This paper presents the results of an empirical study of practicing lawyers who consult and represent parties in Russia. It is based on autobiographic narrative interviews with advocates, in-house lawyers and “private-practice lawyers” from three different regions of the country. The aim is to reconstruct the ways how interviewees construct their self-conceptions as legal professionals when talking about experiences of their professional lives. A combination of the grounded theory and the documentary method of interpretation was used in the process of data analysis.

Three different constructs of legal professionalism are identified in the analyzed narratives: a client-centered one, a norm-centered one and a self-centered one. Each of these types is described in detail based on twelve cases which were selected for close comparisons from a pool of 44 interviews. In conclusion, it is hypothesized that the client-centered type is on the rise among the post-socialist generation of legal practitioners.

Keywords: Россия, Russia, социология профессий, Legal professions, sociology of professions, Юридические профессии, qualitative research, качественные исследования

Publication based on the results of: Societal Transformation, Changing Legal System and Professional Habitus of Russian Lawyers (2013)