Varieties of Legal Intermediaries: When Non-Legal Professionals Act as Legal Intermediaries

Abstract

Legal intermediation is an emerging theoretical concept developed to graspthe importance of the process and actors who contribute to legalendogenization, in particular in the field of economic activities and workgoverned by various public regulations. This chapter proposes to extend theanalytical category of legal intermediary to all actors who, even if they arenot legal professionals, deal on a daily basis with legal categories andprovisions. In order to deepen our understanding of these actors and theircontribution to how organizations frame legality, this chapter investigatesfour examples of legal intermediaries who are not legal professionals. Basedon field surveys conducted over the past 15 years in France on employmentpolicy, industrial relations, occupational health and safety regulation, andforensic economics, I make three contributions. First, the cases show thediversity of legal intermediaries and their growing and increasingly reflexiveroles in our complex economies. Second, while they are not legal professionalsper se, to different degrees, these legal intermediaries assume roles similar tothose of legal professionals such as legislators, judges, lawyers, inspectors,cops, and even clerks. Finally, depending on their level of legitimacy andpower, I show how legal intermediaries take part in the process of legalendogenization and how they more broadly frame ordinary legality.