Becoming Global Lawyers: A Comparative Study of Civic Professionalism

Through their professional education and training, new lawyers are generally encouraged to adopt a civic vision of professional identity. This article explores convergences and divergences in how new lawyers entering an increasingly globalized legal profession conceive of their civic roles in different national contexts. In particular, I draw on interviews and a cross-cultural identity-mapping method to examine the lived experiences of civic professionalism among corporate-lawyers-in-training in the United States and China. I found that professional identity formation in the US sample is largely marked by role distancing and a sense of constrained public-interest expression. In contrast, Chinese respondents generally identified strongly with their civic roles, while framing their public contributions in pragmatic, state-aligned terms. I conclude with a comparative analysis of young lawyers’ bottom-up efforts to expand their civic impact.

Community, Engagement, and Democracy: Re-envisioning Public Relations and Public Interest Communications through Civic Professionalism

This paper explores how public relations and public information communication can rise above an era of fake news and alternative facts. The author investigates how public relations and public interest communications fit with the concept of civic professionalism as a way of building community and engagement. Civic professionalism is a framework that incorporates the values of education with civic inquiry, reflection, and practical work. Thoughts for how public relations may shape and contribute to public interest communications by promoting dialogue in support of democracy to keep social trust and civic bonds intact are also examined.

Tunisia's “Revolutionary” Lawyers: From Professional Autonomy to Political Mobilization

On January 14, 2011, after twenty‐three years in power and one month of popular protest demanding his resignation, President Ben Ali fled Tunisia. Lawyers, wearing their official robes, had marched frequently in the uprising's demonstrations. By engaging with and supporting the uprising, lawyers—both the profession in general and the bar's leadership—gained considerable symbolic influence over the post‐uprising government that replaced Ben Ali's regime. This article outlines the various forms of political lawyering undertaken by Tunisian lawyers and their professional associations from Tunisia's independence to post‐uprising transitions. We demonstrate that economic concerns, professional objectives, and civic professionalism contributed to the collective action of Tunisian lawyers before and after the uprising. Tunisian lawyers moved beyond the realm of their profession to adopt a role as overseers of the post‐uprising government.

Civic Professionalism: Using Service Learning to Educate Social Work Students as Citizens

Schools of social work have put considerable energy into civic engagement and community partnership. Despite the attention paid to the civic mission of the university and/or of the profession, however, very little attention has been paid to the civic education of social work students. It will be argued here that social work education must include discussions about citizenship and democracy, about participating in our communities apart from our work. Service learning, with its emphasis on civic learning and a complementary focus on social justice, provides both a lens and a pedagogy for accomplishing this.