Legal Professionals in White-Collar Crime: Knowing, Thinking and Acting

Description

This work is dedicated to map the modes of thinking and acting of legal professionals who work in white-collar crime. Lawyers, whose decisions generate economic and political consequences, stand at a strategic location between the state and key segments of society. This monograph’s approach is linked to the foundations of the sociology of knowledge, that culture antecedes and anchors social action. It starts by reconstructing the worldviews that legal professionals hold about corruption and its main participants, and then advances to examine decision-making. The author is introducing an innovative dataset comprised of interviews, court records and biographical data to investigate Brazilian lawyers (1985-2021). The study’s qualitative findings show a professional cognitive pattern that is apolitical and technical, and criticizes unskilled people working in the state administration more than businesspeople. The dominant mindset understands corporate-state relations as a self-feeding system that requires qualification and awareness of international trends to counter crime. The decision-making patterns confirm: (i) that prosecutors and judges prioritize the ends, fighting corruption, and use existing legislation and organizational resources to secure verdicts; (ii) the asymmetries between how bribe-payers and bribe-payees are treated. Summary Zusammenfassung Contents List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction 2 Theoretical Basis for Studying Legal Professionals in White-collar Crime 2.1 Social Theory, Sociology, and the Professions 2.2 Towards a Sociology of Knowledge: Exclusive Claims, Knowledge and Expertise 2.3 Towards a Political Sociology: Legal Professionals and Legal Elites 2.4 Merging an Elite and a Profession Perspective to Study the White-collar Crime Workgroup 3 Research Design 3.1 First Step of Research Strategy: Modes of Thinking and Hermeneutic Method 3.2 Second Step of Research Strategy: Modes of Acting and Decision-making Analysis 3.3 Third Step of Research Strategy: Additional Explanations 4 How do Legal Professionals Think? 4.1 Explanatory Variables for Collective Mindsets 4.1.1 Social origin 4.1.2 Sex 4.1.3 Career 4.1.4 Sector 4.2 Institutional Anchors 4.2.1 White-collar Crime 4.2.2 Republicanism and Positivism 4.2.3 Pragmatism 4.2.4 Critical School and Guarantism 4.3 Cultural Backwardness 5 How do Legal Professionals Decide? 5.1 A “differentiated kind of investigation” to deal with “a differentiated kind of criminality” 5.1.1 “Centralize and Conquer” 5.1.2 “Any Port in a Storm” 5.1.3 “All’s Fair in Love and War” 5.2 Business and Politicians on the Dock 5.2.1 Processing Time of Criminal Proceedings 5.2.2 Convictions and Penalties of Offenders 6 Additional Factors of Explanations 6.1 The Logic of the Law and the Administration of Justice 6.2 The Logic of Global Norms 6.3 The Aggregated Logic of Decision-making: A Research Agenda 7 How Autonomous has the Legal Elite been in Respect to the State and the Market? 8 Conclusion Epilogue References