A Legal Typology for Disaster Response Operations: Public Lawyering in the State of Emergency
34 Pages Posted: 5 Sep 2010 Last revised: 23 Apr 2013
Date Written: September 5, 2010
Abstract
Lawyers are increasingly called upon to play an advisory role in emergency operations centers during disasters and emergency operations. Lawyers as advisers navigate three distinct action arenas that often end up in conflict with one another during the exigency of the disaster: service to the executive, administrative procedure and rule expert and upholder of the Constitutional norms and values. This paper ties these three action arenas to Nonet and Selznick’s (1978) legal typology of Repressive, Autonomous and Responsive law, using qualitative empirical evidence gathered in interviews, observations and archival research to demonstrate the ways in which the conflict plays out during high tempo operations. While Nonet and Selznick viewed these typologies as occurring at a societal level and thus occurring as a developmental process for a modern state, this paper shows that at a micro-level these concepts exist in dynamic tension in the legal adviser’s action disaster action arenas.
Keywords: lawyers, disaster, emergency management, crisis management
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