Darian-Smith, Eve --- "Global law firms in real-world contexts: practical limitations and ethical implications" [2017] ELECD 1607; in Nafziger, A.R. James (ed), "Comparative Law and Anthropology" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 381

Book Title: Comparative Law and Anthropology

Editor(s): Nafziger, A.R. James

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781955178

Section: Chapter 16

Section Title: Global law firms in real-world contexts: practical limitations and ethical implications

Author(s): Darian-Smith, Eve

Number of pages: 13

Abstract/Description:

This chapter argues that despite the rise in the numbers of global law firms in recent years, the future of these firms should not be assumed given escalating levels of economic and legal uncertainty. These uncertainties are the result, in part, of growing global and regional conflicts, terrorism, environmental degradation, pandemics, forced migrations, trade embargoes and so on which are in turn linked to global inequalities and disparities of wealth between and within the global south and global north. Drawing upon ethnographically informed scholarship, it is argued that global law firms, as the “lubricators of global capitalism”, should pay attention to the localized real-world impacts of finance, development and trade that their legal work enables. This is important not only to ensure the future security and revenues of global law firms, but more importantly to ensure democratic aspirations and the stability of democratic institutions around the world.