Barefoot lawyer

A barefoot lawyer (Chinese: 赤脚律师 pinyin: chìjiǎo lǜshī) is a self-taught legal activist in China. Many barefoot lawyers are peasants who teach themselves enough law to file civil complaints, engage in litigation, and educate fellow citizens about their rights. The term is a variation of the "barefoot doctor"—farmers with minimal formal training who nonetheless provided essential medical services in rural China during the Mao era. Barefoot lawyers provide free legal services, and in many instances take on controversial or politically sensitive cases—such as tackling corruption by local authorities—that more established legal professionals may be reluctant to pursue. Notable examples of barefoot lawyers include the blind self-taught activist Chen Guangcheng, and Guo Feixiong.

Since the legal reforms of the late 1970s and 1980s, the Communist Party of China has moved to embrace the language of the rule of law and establish a modern court system. In the process, it has enacted thousands of new laws and regulations, and embarked on campaigns to publicize the idea that citizens have protection under the law. As China’s leadership became cognizant of the importance of the legal system and legal profession to advance economic development, training for lawyers dramatically increased. From 1986 to 1992, the number of lawyers in the country more than doubled from 21,500 to 45,000, and by 2008 had reached 143,000.

Despite the meteoric growth in the legal profession in China since the 1980s, many rural counties in China have a severe shortage of legal professionals; a 2004 report by China's Ministry of Justice noted that 200 counties did not have a single lawyer. This has given rise to several distinct classes of legal workers and activists with varying qualifications who step in to meet the demand for legal professionals and advisors. While licensed lawyers and the less qualified "legal workers" tend to have established ties to authorities and local courts, barefoot lawyers are independent actors. Moreover, unlike most lawyers who gravitate to urban centers, barefoot lawyers tend to be based in rural areas where citizens have limited access to justice. Although they lack the training and professionalism of lawyers, they serve an irreplaceable function of providing "convenient, approachable, and free services" without political constraints, according to You-Tien Hsing and Ching Kwan Lee.

...
Wikipedia