The Underdevelopment of Legal Professions: A Review Article on Third World Lawyers

Richard L. Abel

Richard L. Abel Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles. B.A., 1962, Harvard University; LL.B., 1965, Columbia University School of Law; Ph.D., 1974, University of London.

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Richard L. Abel,

Richard L. Abel

Richard L. Abel Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles. B.A., 1962, Harvard University; LL.B., 1965, Columbia University School of Law; Ph.D., 1974, University of London.

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First published: July 1982

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-4469.1982.tb00473.x

Citations: 3

Professor Abel's title, a reference to theories of underdevelopment (e.g., Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1974)), is intended to suggest that Third World legal professions did not somehow fail to “develop”—they are not poor copies of Western models—but rather were underdeveloped, i.e., their particular configurations are a by-product of the penetration and dominance of the precapitalist periphery by the capitalist core.

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