Ying Xia on Guerrilla Lawyering: Mobile Resistance in China’s Environmental Public Interest Litigation (LSR)

"Guerrilla Lawyering: Mobile Resistance in China’s Environmental Public Interest Litigation"
Ying Xia
Law & Society Review, First View, pp. 1 - 27
Published online: September 2025

Abstract: This study examines the transformation of environmental public interest lawyering in China within an ever-tightening legal order, where activists confront both state suppression and co-optation. Utilizing qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews with 49 environmental lawyers and activists, participant observations, and online ethnography, the research delineates two divergent models of legal mobilization. The conventional model prioritizes compliance with state regulations, employing impact litigation and consensus-building with state institutions to drive incremental environmental reforms, often at the cost of aligning with state priorities. In contrast, guerrilla lawyering emerges as an innovative strategy, leveraging decentralized networks, experimentalist litigation, flexible funding, and diffused media tactics to sustain activism while preserving autonomy. By transforming courts into platforms for generating critical information and exposing systemic vulnerabilities, guerrilla lawyering resists assimilation into state-controlled schemes. This approach not only ensures movement survival amidst repression but also enriches theoretical understandings of legal mobilization under authoritarianism by addressing the understudied risk of co-optation. These findings illuminate the resilience and ingenuity of activists in China’s constrained environmental advocacy landscape and offer a transferable framework for resistance for social movements in other authoritarian contexts, amid the global rise of authoritarian legality.

Sida Liu and Anson Au on Mobility Spaces: Geographical and Professional Distances in Career Mobility (JABS)

"Mobility Spaces: Geographical and Professional Distances in Career Mobility"
Sida Liu and Anson Au
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science
Published online: December 2024

Abstract: This article introduces the novel concept of “mobility spaces” to investigate the role of geographical and professional distances in career mobility and how they are influenced by social structural factors. Mobility spaces encompass physical, social, and legal spaces that professionals navigate while shaping their career trajectories over time. The study focuses on the movement of professionals across mobility spaces and examining the constraints and opportunities affecting their career paths. Using empirical data on the mobility of Hong Kong law firm partners from 1994 to 2021, the article demonstrates that social structural factors such as gender, race and ethnicity, firm origins, and firm prestige significantly influence the geographical and professional distances that professionals manage to traverse in their career moves. The mobility spaces theory aims to use space to contextualize the interplay between individual and macrostructural factors in shaping professional career outcomes.

Sida Liu et al on Crisis as opportunity: legal career paths at two historical turning points in Hong Kong (LSR)

"Crisis as opportunity: legal career paths at two historical turning points in Hong Kong"
Sida Liu, Anson Au, and Pamela P. Tsui
Law & Society Review, Volume 58, Issue 3, pp. 481 - 504
Published online: October 2024

Abstract: This article investigates the career trajectories of Hong Kong solicitors during two historical turning points, specifically 1994–1997 and 2018–2021, when hundreds of lawyers left private practice to pursue alternative career options such as business and finance, government and politics, or relocation to other countries. Data are sourced from the career mobility records of law firm partners reported in 336 monthly issues of the Hong Kong Lawyer journal between 1994 and 2021, as well as other relevant archival sources. The research examines the underlying forces that led these law firm partners to abandon their high-status positions and pursue alternative career paths during these pivotal moments in Hong Kong’s history. The findings suggest that the career trajectories of these elite professionals are not solely based on individual choices but are also shaped by their social origins and the physical and social spaces that influence their careers over time. This study contributes original insights into the complex interplay between individual, spatial and temporal factors that drive career mobility among legal professionals.

Call for Applications - Global Academic Fellows 2022 (HKU Law)

THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG
Global Academic Fellows

Department of Law

Applications are invited for appointments as Global Academic Fellow in the Department of Law, to commence in August 2022 or January 2023, for a period of two years.

     The Global Academic Fellows Program was created to provide outstanding and aspiring legal academics with time and resources to transition into the global teaching market. Fellows will have access to an internationally leading faculty for mentorship, affiliation with related research centers, and funding for attending academic conferences to present their work. Other opportunities will include teaching Fellows’ own course or gaining experience in core courses, and organizing funded academic conferences in their field. Applicants should have completed their degrees (JD, JSD, or PhD) before the start of their appointments, unless they possess significant practice experience. Successful candidates will be appointed at the grade of Post-doctoral Fellow.

     One to three fellows will be appointed each year, and will be expected to be in residence at HKU and devote their time primarily to their own research and preparation for entering the international teaching market. Fellows will be provided shared office space and administrative support when needed. Information about the Department of Law and the Faculty of Law can be found at: www.law.hku.hk.

     A highly competitive salary commensurate with qualifications and experience will be offered, in addition to annual leave, housing subsidy, relocation expenses and full medical benefits. At current rates, salaries tax does not exceed 15% of gross income. Additionally, all shortlisted candidates will be nominated for HKU’s Presidential Post-Doctoral Fellowship. These nominations potentially represents additional salary, research funds and the optional extension of the fellowship for a third year. Address any specific questions to the Director at: jkroncke@hku.hk. 

     The University only accepts online application for the above post. Applicants should apply online and upload the following 4 components: 1) an up-to-date CV, 2) a 3-page research agenda (including past, current and future projects), 3) a list of at least three academic references, and 4) a writing sample (under 50 pages).  Applicants should apply at: https://jobs.hku.hk/cw/en/job/508741/global-academic-fellow-3-posts.  Closes 3 January, 2022.