When Lawyers Attack the Rule of Law

Scott Cummings is the Robert Henigson Professor of Legal Ethics at the UCLA School of Law, where he teaches and writes about the legal profession, legal ethics, access to justice, and local government law. We're delighted he's giving a talk on Friday 21 March about his research into why and how lawyers attack the rule of law.

Abstract

This Article explores the role of lawyers in democratic backsliding—the degradation of democratic institutions and practices using law rather than violence. The Article’s central aim is to set an agenda and outline an approach to studying the professional paradox at the center of backsliding: why and how lawyers attack the rule of law. It thus seeks to shift the scholarly lens from the conventional view of lawyers as defenders of democracy to investigate lawyers as authors of autocracy. Toward that end, the Article theorizes the legal profession as a site of backsliding, outlining a framework that positions lawyers in relation to distinct pathways of autocratization on the slow road of gradual democratic decline and the fast track of imminent democratic attack.

Speaker

Scott Cummings holds the inaugural Robert Henigson Chair in Legal Ethics at the UCLA School of Law, where he has taught since 2002. He is the founding Faculty Director of the Program on Legal Ethics and the Profession, which promotes research and dialogue on the professional challenges of global legal practice and the role of legal ethics in democracy.

Registration: https://uvaforms.formstack.com/forms/when_lawyers_attack
Additional information: https://www.uva.nl/en/shared-content/subsites/amsterdam-centre-for-european-law-and-governance/en/events/2025/03/scott-cummings.html?origin=yiD0tqAUS6W8WVuh7rCWcg