Intraprofessional Competition and Earnings Inequalities Across a Professional Chasm: The Case of the Legal Profession in Québec,Canada

Intraprofessional rivalry has a long history. This article examines earnings disparities as a dimension of intraprofessional competition among avocats and notaires in the civil law system of Québec, Canada. Drawing on two large‐scale surveys and in‐depth interviews with legal professionals, I examine three competing perspectives of earnings inequalities: human capital, social‐symbolic capital, and organizational‐structural explanations. Through this analysis I seek to examine whether similar causal processes shape earnings across the two spheres of legal practice in Québec. The findings of this study clearly demonstrate that these two professional groups are equipped with differential stocks of capital, and conversion rates differ drastically. Avocats receive greater exchange on their investments in human and social‐symbolic capitals. These disparities are most pronounced in sectors of the profession where jurisdictional frictions abound: among notaires and avocats working as solo practitioners and in small firms within competitive urban contexts. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical extensions and future directions for the study of legal professionals in civil law systems and blended jurisdictions.     

Pain as a fact and heuristic: how pain neuroimaging illuminates moral dimensions of law

In legal domains ranging from tort to torture, pain and its degree do important definitional work by delimiting boundaries of lawfulness and of entitlements. Yet, for all the work done by pain as a term in legal texts and practice, it has a confounding lack of external verifiability. Now, neuroimaging is rendering pain and myriad other subjective states at least partly ascertainable. This emerging ability to ascertain and quantify subjective states is prompting a "hedonic" or a "subjectivist" turn in legal scholarship, which has sparked a vigorous debate as to whether the quantification of subjective states might affect legal theory and practice. Subjectivists contend that much values-talk in law has been a necessary but poor substitute for quantitative determinations of subjective states--determinations that will be possible in the law's "experiential future." This Article argues the converse: that pain discourse in law frequently is a heuristic for values. Drawing on interviews and laboratory visits with neuroimaging researchers, this Article shows current and in-principle limitations of pain quantification through neuroimaging. It then presents case studies on torture-murder, torture, the death penalty, and abortion to show the largely heuristic role of pain discourse in law. Introducing the theory of "embodied morality," the Article describes how moral conceptions of rights and duties are informed by human physicality and constrained by the limits of empathic identification. Pain neuroimaging helps reveal this dual factual and heuristic nature of pain in the law, and thus itself points to the translational work required for neuroimaging to influence, much less transform, legal practice and doctrine.     

The Ironies of Helping: Social Interventions and Executable Subjects

Law and society scholars have theorized about the link between capital punishment and the hegemony of individualism, but few offer empirical investigations to illustrate how individualism makes capital punishment possible (and vice versa) in the contemporary United States. In order to fill this gap, we analyze the legal and human service records that were compiled in the construction of one executable subject, Daniel Farnsworth. Using a critical discourse approach, we look at what was said and not said about Daniel in the records created by various helping agencies. In our analysis, we demonstrate how the helping agencies involved in Daniel's life repeatedly relied on an individuating psychological paradigm that led them to produce decontextualized catalogs of his actions and characteristics. Next, we illustrate how these pathologizing accounts were, ironically, later invoked in court in the name of preserving his life. Finally, we explain how "helping" discourses, along with the rules that regulate capital defense practice, straightjacket defense attorneys into reinforcing individualism in this context.     

Trying differently: A relationship-centered approach to representing clients with cognitive challenges

This article demonstrates the usefulness of an innovative framework called "Relationship-Centered Lawyering" to enhancing real world legal practice. It uses the example of lawyers, particularly criminal defense lawyers, who often deal with clients with cognitive challenges. The article developed out of a series of workshops conducted jointly by the co-authors, an American law professor with a social work background, and a Canadian criminal defense lawyer and family mediator who is an international expert on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and other Neuro-Behavioral Disorders (FA/NB). The paper describes the relational theory Brooks developed (along with Robert Madden), along with the science of cognitive impairments, with a specific focus on FA/NB. The paper provides two illustrations of the relational framework by explaining Boulding's strategy of creating what is called the "external brain" and his techniques of relational interviewing.     

THOU SHALT NOT EXECUTE

This article discusses the historical developments in the approach of Hebrew law to capital punishment. It presents the biblical principles and modes of capital punishment, and discusses subsequent reforms and innovations of the Talmudic and post- Talmudic scholars. The sanctity and invaluableness of life, so fundamental to Hebrew law, did not allow for the substitution of any other type of punishment for death. Reluctance to impose death penalties was expressed in various procedural and substantive legal requirements for conviction in capital cases, requirements that rendered the imposition of the death penalty virtually impossible. The few exceptions to this practice were noted and the relevance of Hebrew law to secular law in contemporary society is discussed.     

中西思想家对“人的尊严”的论述

"人的尊严"是一个拥有丰富内涵的、被当代法律制度引入的哲学观点,探讨"人的尊严"的源与流,通过对中西思想家关于"人的尊严"的论述来考查它的产生、发展的流变历程。     

公司法资本制度改革的逻辑与路径——基于商业实践视角的观察

从商业实践的视角观察公司法资本制度的逻辑与演进,有助于理解全球性公司资本制度改革的不同路径以及我国2013年改革的争议。法律对公司资本的约束起源于描述股东出资设立公司的过程,揭示资合公司的起点与治理架构的基点。公司实体的持续存在催生了"资本维持"的初始观念,"有限责任"的外部性则最终塑造出法定资本制的核心规则。但法定资本制简单而朴素的逻辑难以适应变化多端的商业实践,由此见证了会计、估值、债务契约、证券监管等辅佐、分担或替代了法定资本制的部分功能。法定资本制改革具有内在动力。改革抛弃了传统而僵化的"法定资本"概念,将资本制度的重心从债权人利益保护转移到股东权益的合理配置。我国公司法在规则层面实现了资本制度的现代化,但与之对应的商业理性与行为模式不可能一蹴而就,需要相关配套制度和商业实践来弥补认缴登记制立法的疏漏。     

Social Capital and Constraints on Legal Careers

This article focuses on the role of social capital in lawyers' careers by examining the career outcomes of Jewish lawyers. Although research on the legal profession has emphasized social capital as an inherently positive resource, this article conceptualizes social capital as multivalent, with the potential for both positive and negative effects. Drawing on five forms of social capital and examining four separate outcomes (type of practice setting, prestige of field of practice, satisfaction, and income), the analyses demonstrate that particular forms of social capital are indeed related to diverging outcomes. This study finds positive effects for the social capital that derives from reciprocity exchanges, but it also finds that the social capital built through dense social ties can lead to less successful professional settings. The conclusion explores the possibilities this raises for understanding the interplay between religion, capital, and legal careers.     

The psychiatrist's guide to right and wrong: Part III: Postpartum depression and the "appreciation" of wrongfulness

Whether or not the psychiatrist testifies on the ultimate issue in insanity defense cases, it is critically important that he familiarize himself with the applicable legal standards and interpretations in order properly to relate his clinical findings to the relevant criteria for insanity and thereby enhance the probative value of his testimony. This is the third in a series of articles which attempts to explicate judicial and statutory standards of insanity and correlate them with the psychiatrist's findings of psychopathology. This article analyzes the Model Penal Code formulation of insanity, with special emphasis on the all important distinction between "know" and "appreciate." This formulation permits the defendant possessed of mere surface knowledge or cognition to be exculpated, requiring that he have a deeper affective appreciation of the legal and moral import of the conduct involved if he is to be held criminally responsible. The Model Penal Code approach more readily lends itself to application as a standard of responsibility in cases involving affective disorders. An important disorder within this group, postpartum depression, is discussed in the context of raising the insanity defense in a case of infanticide.     

The Role of International Legal Norms in Ensuring the "Right to a Legal Defense"

On 22 November 1991, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted the "Declaration of the Rights and Freedoms of the Individual and Citizen."¹ Article 1 of the declaration states that universally recognized international norms on human rights have priority over the laws of the RSFSR where they directly give rise to rights and duties of citizens. But, in the words of A.M. Vasil'ev, this is "really only a defended, not a proclaimed right."² The systems of international and Soviet law set down the procedure and the order of realization of rights and freedoms and the ways and means for their legal defense. An important guarantee for the realization of rights and freedoms is ensuring the individual's right to a legal defense.     

"Jurisdictional Politics" in the Occupied West Bank: Territory, Community, and Economic Dependency in the Formation of Legal Subjects

This article examines the distribution of legal rights in the Israeli occupied West Bank. It argues that legal rights are distributed through a "jurisdictional politics" that tries to stabilize the contingent relationship between political community, territory, and legal subjects. In particular, this jurisdictional politics seeks to delimit the contradictory boundaries of the Israeli state by creating distinct categories of person out of the populations that live and work in the region. These issues are addressed by examining a dispute concerning the jurisdiction of Israeli law over Palestinian workers in Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The article ends by arguing that in the context of multiple movements of people, capital, and military force, attention must be paid to the often contradictory ways in which jurisdictional regimes seek to produce particular types of citizens and subjects.     

Political Liberalism and Political Embeddedness: Understanding Politics in the Work of Chinese Criminal Defense Lawyers

This article examines the meanings of politics in everyday legal practice using the case of Chinese criminal defense lawyers. Based on 194 in‐depth interviews with criminal defense lawyers and other informants in 22 cities across China, we argue that lawyers’ everyday politics have two faces: on the one hand, lawyers potentially can challenge state power, protect citizen rights, and pursue proceduralism in their daily work; on the other hand, they often have to rely on political connections with state agencies to protect themselves and to solve problems in their legal practice. The double meanings of politics—namely, political liberalism and political embeddedness—explain the complex motivations and coping tactics that are frequently found in Chinese lawyers’ everyday work. Our data show that the Chinese criminal defense bar is differentiated along these two meanings of politics into five clusters of lawyers: progressive elites, pragmatic brokers, notable activists, grassroots activists, and routine practitioners. They also suggest that a principal manifestation of political lawyering is not merely short‐term mobilization or revolutionary struggle against arbitrary state power, but also an incremental everyday process that often involves sophisticated tactics to manage interests that often conflict.     

民法上“法益”概念的探源与本土化

《民法总则》第126条中的"利益",与我国民法学界持者甚众的狭义法益说中的"法益"含义大致相同,指的是权利之外应当受到法律保护的客体,是立法者为解决其预见性不足的弹性规范设计。上述界定与"法益"概念的原意不符,和刑法学界的惯常用法存在明显差别,属于概念移植过程中的本土化改造。"民事权利和利益"的二分法和狭义法益说在法理、逻辑上都不能成立,也不具备法益理论应当具备的分类、区分保护和评价功能,必然会造成立法表述与司法裁判说理中的冲突。"法益"概念的本土化界定,应当建立在共识的基础上,寻求统一的、适用于包括刑法、民法等在内的各个部门法的"法益"概念。"法益"是应当受到法保护的利益,此处的法既包括实然意义上的法律,也包括应然意义上的法。法益是权利的上位而非平行概念,《民法总则》第126条中的"利益"实质上是未被立法明文规定的未上升为权利的法益,未来修法时应将该条修改为"民事主体享有其他民事权利和未上升为权利的法益"。     

The Financial Rewards of Elite Status in the Legal Profession

This article focuses on the role of intergenerational status attainment for legal careers. By decomposing the earnings gap between elite and nonelite lawyers at two points in their careers, we find that inherited cultural capital produces an earnings advantage as soon as lawyers begin their careers and that this gap persists over time. We further find that the processes underlying this gap change as lawyers make their way through the profession. While in early careers, the elite advantage is due to stronger starting endowments, the advantage for junior lawyers results from a more complex process, which combines starting endowments, professional capital gained during the first years of practice, and the rate at which endowments are differentially rewarded in the profession. Elaborating on work that identifies the importance of maintaining and concentrating diverse forms of capital in the legal profession, we explain the process through which elite lawyers gain and retain their advantage over time.     

Queers and Provocateurs: Hegemony, Ideology, and the "Homosexual Advance" Defense

This exploratory article relies upon a historical-interpretive approach to understanding the relationship between legal narrative and popular consciousness in particular historical moments, focusing especially on "troubled times," in which the legitimacy of a hegemonic worldview embodied in law comes under challenge from a newly ascendant ideology in the popular domain. To discern the nature of that relationship and its implications, I offer a three-pronged analysis, drawing on two original data sets. Initially, each data set is analyzed individually to elaborate the nature of, and changes in, (1) representations of homosexuals circulating in popular culture, and (2) constructions of homosexuals in defendants' narratives in "homosexual advance" homicide cases between 1946 and 2003. Findings from these two analyses are thereafter combined to explore the relationship between the two constructions of homosexuals across that time period. In combination, these three analyses provide empirical evidence that, rather than mirroring changes in popular discourse about homosexuality, the changes revealed in the defense narratives actually opposed them. I use these findings to argue that, in what Swidler (1986) has called "unsettled times," ideological pluralism is pronounced and may be discerned in the complex and sometimes counterintuitive relationships that exist within and between legal narrative and popular discourse.     

公司组织形态与证券(融资)权利——摈弃有限公司“改制上市”的法律习规

在中国目前法律实践中,有限公司如欲成为上市公司或行使公开融资的权利,需先透过"公司改制"环节,成为股份公司,再以股份公司身份申请公开发行。显然,目前公开融资的权利是根据企业组织形态来进行配置的。可是,无论是理论界还是实务界,都很少仔细去思考——企业公开融资的权利到底应当如何配置?在中国,有限公司占据公司数量的绝对多数,目前盛行的"先改制,后发行上市"的法律安排,存在诸如"引发上市包装"、"导致纠纷隐藏"、"引发PE腐败"、"不当增加企业融资成本"等弊端。"改制上市"并未有效地改观公司治理,反而无谓地增加了企业融资困扰,影响了企业的公平发展权。无论是从资金融出方还是融入方观察,公司组织形态都不是配置融资权利的核心要素,融资权利的配置应当交给投资者,主要根据是否有"合适的项目"去判断。现行的企业改制发行方案,无疑在一定程度上隐藏了企业真实状况,极易推动形成"融资骗局"。因此,应当修改《公司法》、《证券法》相关规定,摒弃改制上市的习规,让有限公司乃至合伙企业等各种企业组织形式可以直接公开发行上市,在公开发行成功之后,直接变更/转换为股份公司。根据"好项目",而非"好的公司组织形态"配置融资权利,可以节省企业融资成本,加快融资过程,公平地实现"企业的发展权"。     

Recent developments in liability for nondisclosure of capital market information

The article first outlines the recent development of the European capital market as a whole and second describes the legal answers on the phenomena of globalisation and the high dependence on information technology. After revealing the two main phenomena of the capital market, namely asymmetric information and opportunistic behaviour the article deals with disclosure duties on the European and national level of EU-member states and focuses finally on the liability for non-disclosure and tries to embed this legal institute in the broad range of legal instruments to strengthen the efficiency of capital market law.     

Eugenics: progress or backward movement?]

Throughout this article there is a critical analysis of how genetics presents a dilemma for "human progress". So much so, that the legal world aims to create unequivocal norms and guarantees in relation with eugenics in order to avoid attempting against human dignity. The document makes the reader reflect on the ethical problems that eugenics can entail.     

Honor and Dignity in the Film Unforgiven: Implications for Sociolegal Theory

This article calls attention to "honor" and "dignity" as two fundamental, antithetical bases of unique value systems, both highly significant to social orders and legal systems in the contemporary Western world. The article argues that in this comparative context, the relatively new dignity-based value system may be better defined and articulated; at the same time, the overlooked, traditional honor-based value system, which underlies much of contemporary reality, can be better identified and replaced or at least modified by a dignity-based one. Rather than look to specific sociolegal realities, the article presents this line of thought from a "law-and-film" perspective, i.e., through the close reading of a single feature film: Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven . This contemporary, widely familiar, and immensely popular Western exposes the ugly face of the honor-based value system at the heart of the Western film genre; further, it subversively undermines this value system, replacing it with a dignity-based one. In so doing, the film expresses deep faith in the human capacity to transform, calling on real-world social and legal systems to follow in its footsteps and apply the same critical analysis and reformative activism to Western law and society at large.     

辩护律师权利的发展与缺憾——基于新律师法的思考

新律师法中辩护律师的权利得到了较大的发展,主要体现在原有权利的完善和新权利的增加两个方面。这些发展有助于解决实践中律师辩护的"三难"问题,维护当事人的合法权益;有助于减小辩护风险,提高律师参与刑事辩护的积极性;有助于减小当事人聘请律师的顾虑,维护辩护制度的存续与发展。但从已规定的权利的实效性和权利的充足性角度分析,新律师法仍然存在缺憾。修改刑事诉讼法时,应当从明确与充实阅卷权的权限内容、增设程序性辩护权、在场权以及加强权利保障性规定等方面予以完善。