Miriam Driessen
November 14, 2022
Political and Legal Anthropology Review
Open access available: https://doi.org/10.1111/plar.12509
Abstract
Legal representation requires trust. How is trust given and gained in lawyer-client relations that are tainted by mistrust? In this article I examine interactions between Ethiopian lawyers and their Chinese clients to show how both parties mitigate mistrust to enable productive legal representation across radical difference. This process not only involves patience and persistence but also prompts clients to put trust on trial. First, they do so by closely monitoring their lawyers or testing them through choreographed situations of trusting in which the stakes are low or the transfer of trust carefully controlled. Second, by cultivating loyalty and proximity they attempt to further enhance the predictability of the other’s future actions to ensure the desired outcome of trust.
