Sida Liu (On Leave)

Professor Liu’s research interests include the sociology of law, organizations and professions, social theory, criminal justice, and globalization. He has conducted extensive empirical research on China’s legal reform and legal profession, including the globalization of corporate law firms, the political mobilization of criminal defense lawyers, the feminization of judges, and the career mobility of law practitioners. His current project examines the influence of colonialism and authoritarianism on the professions in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In addition to his empirical work, Professor Liu also writes on theories of law, professions, and social spaces following the tradition of Georg Simmel and the Chicago School of sociology.

Professor Liu is the author of three books in Chinese and English, most recently, Criminal Defense in China: The Politics of Lawyers at Work (with Terence C. Halliday, Cambridge University Press 2016). He has also published many articles in leading law and social science journals, including the American Journal of Sociology, Canadian Review of Sociology, Sociological Theory, Law & Society Review, Law & Social Inquiry, China Quarterly, etc. Professor Liu is a Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation, as well as an affiliated scholar of the U.S.-Asia Law Institute at New York University School of Law and the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. In 2016-2017, he was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.