Lawyers often play pivotal roles in building democracies. Pamela Jordan’s engaging study of the Russian bar (advokatura) provides a richly textured portrait of how, after the USSR’s collapse, practising lawyers called advocates began to assume new, self-defined roles as contributors to legal reform and defenders of rights in Russia.

Using the historical institutionalism approach as her analytical framework and drawing from comparative literature on legal professions, Jordan argues that the post-Soviet advokatura as an institution gained more, although not complete, autonomy from the state as it struggled to redefine itself as a profession. Advocates formed new bar associations and law offices and now have a broader range of ways to defend clients’ rights than they did during the Soviet era. Jordan suggests that advocates’ work is supporting the growth of civil society and the strengthening of human rights in Russia.

Jordan concludes that, in a measured way, advocates redistributed social and political power by means of their role as intermediary actors between state and societal forces. However, she also warns that such gains could be reversed if the Putin regime continues to flout due process rights.

Pamela Jordan's profile page

Pamela A. Jordan is an assistant professor in the Department of History at the University of Saskatchewan.

Jordan’s book represents a major contribution to the study of Russian legal institutions, as well as post-Soviet Russian politics. As such, the book should be of interest to Russian specialists as well as a broader audience interested in comparative law and the development of civil society. Her exemplary scholarship includes thorough consideration of available literature as well as numerous interviews with leading Russian advocates and jurists… Nevertheless, Jordan’s comprehensive discussion of legal hisotyr and current practices will serve as mandatory reading for scholars interested in Russian politics and understanding Russia’s uneven attempts – both past and present – at legal reform.

Law and Politics Books Review, Vol. 16, No. 3

The struggle for legal reform in Russia, the famous Russian political cases, and the behavior of Russian courts get a lot of attention, but Russian lawyers themselves rarely do. How their role is changing, who sets the standards for their education and admission to the guild, how they earn a living, and what their contribution has been to modernizing the Russian legal system are matters little studied -- until Jordan's efficient account.

Foreign Affairs, November/December 2005