(Un)Necessary Evils?: Ethical And Emotional Conflicts For Social Change Lawyers In Canada

This thesis concerns an exploratory study about “social change” lawyers in Canada. Based on qualitative interviews, I aim to provide a modest but in-depth examination of the experiences and practical challenges these lawyers face in their work and how they navigate them. I find their approaches are divided between external and internal, both of which are affected by lawyers’ positionalities and experiences. “External approaches” concern how they reconcile conflicts in their values and responsibilities to different groups—namely individuals, communities and social movements—with each other, and with their obligations to the legal profession. Meanwhile, “internal approaches” concern how they navigate conflicting feelings arising out of working in contradictory and oppressive external systems. Ultimately, there is no formula or answer to how this work can be done; both approaches rely on finding a balance between conflicting parties or feelings and accepting an inherent uncertainty and unresolved nature of the work.