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28 Int'l J. Legal Prof. 1 (2021)

handle is hein.journals/injlepro28 and id is 1 raw text is: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION Routled e 2021, VOL. 28, NO. 1, 1-3 https://doi.org/10.1080/09695958.2021.1877921 Taylor & Francis Group EDITORIAL Introduction Philip S.C. Lewis 1923-2019 was a well-known figure to those of us interested in the sociology of the Legal profession and this special issue of the International Journal of the legal Profession is a tribute to him. Philip was not especially prolific but what he did produce had a substantial and long lasting impact on the way we talk, and think about, the work that lawyers do and the field of socio-legal studies. Within the socio- legal community and beyond, Philip is undoubtedly known best for the three volume collection of essays on Lawyers in Society which he co-edited with his friend and long-time collaborator, Rick Abel. This collection was ground-breaking in a number of ways. Very little comparative work of this kind had been done before and what was available was often rudimentary and fragmented (but see Lewis, 1986). The three volume set of books they co-edited was something special and quite different (Abel and Lewis, 1988a, 1988b, 1989). It contained demographic data on lawyers from 18 jur- isdictions together with historical descriptions of the evolution of professional groups, training social status and disciplinary procedures. The volumes drew on contributions from Canada, the United States, Scotland, England and Wales, Australia, Germany, Japan, Venezuela and Belgium and soon became the starting point for any scholars hoping to understand their own legal system and how it compared to others. What was most notable about the research Philip and Rick did together was the comparative perspective they adopted. Together they established the International Working Group for Comparative Studies of Legal Professions, more than thirty years ago, to carry out an international research project on lawyers. Originally conceived of by Philip, twenty- seven scholars from all around the world met to discuss their shared interest in the subject for the first time in Bellagio in 1984. One of the greatest achievement of these volumes was the platform this comparative work provided for a more theoretical and methodological reflection on the whole field. Philips's achievements as editor and contributor were especially impressive. His own essays were paradigms of clarity, deep thought, and careful research. Lawrence Fried- man (2019) has argued that he came as close as anyone can to the ideal of a legal scholar. The great achievement of Philip and Rick as editors was to hold their co- authors to a common sociological agenda and to offer the sort of strong editorial leader- ship which is all too rarely seen. Rather than appearing as isolated essays contributors were forced to engage with each other and the larger research agendas newly imagined by the collections they produced together. In their contribution to this collection Hilary Sommerlad and Ole Hammersley reflect on the lasting impact of their three volume col- lection and the ways in which it has recently been updated and expanded to cover new issues to do with transnational lawyering or the role of lawyers in socialist and religious legal systems. Within this special issue Agnieszka Kubal's paper on Russian lawyers marks a further attempt to acknowledge Philip's interest in facilitating work on legal systems which have attracted insufficient attention in Anglo-American scholarship. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

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