Faculty Bibliography

Both international relations scholars interested in the future of global governance and sociologists of the legal profession studying the globalization of the legal services market are devoting increasing attention to rising powers, particularly the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Yet very little of this rich literature addresses the intersection between these two theoretical domains. In this Article, we explore one such intersection that is likely to be increasingly important in the coming years: the role that the new corporate legal elite emerging within the BRICS countries will play in shaping global governance. We conceptualize three processes through which this new elite can exert its influence: participation in corporate legal networks, engagement in the integration of the legal industry and of the world economy generally, and facilitation of the global rule of capital. Based on the analysis of these processes in the BRICS context, this Article discusses the potential implications of this new corporate legal elite for global governance – both of the legal profession and of the world order generally. We conclude by proposing a research agenda for advancing scholarship at the intersection of international relations and the sociology of the legal profession.

At the heart of the traditional understanding of the lawyer's role stands a simple but powerful assumption: That the attorney/client relationship is essentially one of agency. In this paper, I argue that notwithstanding its pedigree and intuitive appeal, this traditional assumption is no longer an appropriate template for the relationship between large companies and their primary outside law firms. My claim is both descriptive and normative. Using a variety of data including the results of an on-going study of the legal purchasing decisions of large US companies, I argue that a series of recent trends - the "convergence" of law firm relationships by companies, "consolidation" among firms, increasing integration and information exchange both within and across organizational boundaries, and a surprising amount of turnover among in-house lawyers - are leading companies and firms to enter into relationships that look more like the kind of strategic alliances or partnerships that companies often have with their other important suppliers than the principal-agent relationship envisioned by the traditional model. Borrowing a phrase that has been used to describe the long-term strategic partnerships between Japanese automakers and their suppliers, I call these new relationships "legal keiretsus".Rather than emphasizing the typical principal-agent "logic of power" where stronger actors attempt to gain by coercing their exchange partners into an asymmetric distribution of value, these new legal keiretsus rely on a "logic of embeddedness" that seeks to encourage reciprocity and mutual trust to produce joint gains that will be fairly distributed between the parties. This new logic, however, arguably threatens the ability of outside counsel to function as public-regarding gatekeepers. Although these concerns are legitimate, I will argue that the logic of embeddedness is no more corrosive of public regarding values than the logic of power that now typifies the relationship between companies and their outside firms. Indeed, this logic has the potential to be significantly less corrosive - particularly if we move away from an ethical and regulatory structures based on a principal-agent model that serves only to entrench the ability of powerful corporate-principals to impose their will on increasingly vulnerable lawyer-agents. I conclude by identifying questions for future research, particularly in light of the current economic crisis, recent initiatives such as the American Corporate Counsel Association's Value Challenge, and the growing tendency among corporate clients to focus on the "department" or "team" level when making legal purchasing decisions.

Although the number of black students graduating from law schools has increased significantly in recent decades, blacks still make up a very small minority of the lawyers working in large corporate law firms. Available data indicate that these firms hire few blacks, and that those they do hire are more likely than their white peers to leave the firms before becoming partners. Conventional explanations blame the underrepresentation of blacks in corporate firms on either the racism of firms and their clients, or a shortage of qualified, interested black candidates. While acknowledging that in some instances these factors may help to explain the problem, this Article looks behind them to examine institutional factors that tend to perpetuate the existing underrepresentation. Specifically, the Article shows how the ways in which large corporate firms recruit and train lawyers tend both to shield discriminatory choices between black and white candidates from any competitive disadvantage, and to discourage black law students and lawyers from investing in skills that will enable them to succeed within corporate firms. Thus, the Article argues, firms' hiring and training decisions both shape and are shaped by the strategic choices of black candidates, with the net effect of keeping all but a few blacks from being hired and succeeding in the firm setting. Finally, this Article explores the implications of these incentives for five commonly proposed tools for diversifying corporate law firms: anti-discrimination laws, race-neutral institutional reforms, diversity education within firms, demand-creation initiatives, and supply-side initiatives to encourage hiring and promotion of black lawyers.