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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Defending Rights in Russia

Lawyers, the State, and Legal Reform in the Post-Soviet Era

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. 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 and suggests that advocates’ work is supporting the growth of civil society and the strengthening of human rights in Russia. However, she also warns that such gains could be reversed if the Putin regime continues to flout due process rights.

304 pages | © 2005

Law and Society


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. The Russian and Soviet Bars: A Historical Perspective, 1864-1984

2. The Advokatura in the Gorbachev Period, 1985-91

3. Chaos in the Advokatura, 1992-2002

4. Autonomy and Dependence: State-Bar Relations in the 1990s

5. Restructuring the Advokatura from Above, 2002-3

6. Russian Criminal Defence Advocacy in the Post-Soviet Era

7. New Trends in Advocates’ Practice in the Civil Sphere

Conclusion

Appendices

1 Surveys of Advocates’ Opinions /

2 Stages of a Russian Criminal Case /

Notes /

Selected Bibliography /

Index /

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