This special issue focuses on the role concept, which has largely fallen out of use in sociology, but which seems ideally suited to analyze the circumstances in which legal professionals work nowadays. Their occupations are often surrounded by constitutional guarantees and professional standards, but at the same time in full swing due to policy reforms referred to as New Public Management and Socially Effective Judiciary (Maatschappelijk Effectieve Rechtspraak). This combination of relative role stability and rapid change can ensure that the predictability and desirability of the interpretation attributed to professional roles become subject of discussion and reflection. The way the role concept is used in this special issue is deliberately decoupled from the much-criticized structural functionalism with which it is often associated. The fact that this sociological perspective has lost much of its sway since the 1960s, because of its conservative character, makes it easier to give dynamics, ambiguity, conflict and resistance a prominent place in contemporary analyzes in which the role concept is central. The authors in this special issue examine whether the role fulfillment by professionals working in the legal field is actually subject of discussion and reflection and how this dynamic manifests itself.

This article focuses on the impact of the (increasing) possibility for parties in Dutch civil cases to litigate without the guidance of a legal aid provider on Dutch civil procedure. It analyses the extent to which such self-representation influences the role of the judge in the context of Dutch subdistrict court procedures, where representation is not mandatory. Through empirical data, collected through semi-structured interviews with 26 subdistrict judges, more insight is gained into the dilemmas that the lack of representation of parties presents to judges, and the ways in which they deal with these dilemmas. The interviews show how judges seek a balance between their role as neutral arbitrator in a dispute and a more active role necessitated by parties not being represented by a legal aid provider. In doing so, they navigate between process and content. Within this dynamic, judges must constantly balance the trade-off between acting more actively to gather sufficient information for a substantive handling and assessment of the case, on the one hand, and safeguarding the limits of party autonomy and their own (perceived) neutrality, on the other. Full party autonomy is viewed by judges as unrealistic and, moreover, contrary to truth-finding.

In this contribution we investigated:

1. What changes in the handling of immigration law suits has the corona pandemic led to?

2. What influence have these changes had on the role of first-line migra­tion judges?

   1. Has their working method been adjusted as a result of the corona measures? If so, does this still fit in their view and that of the parties to the proceedings within the requirements of a fair trial and the professional standards that apply to judges?

   2. Do the changes in working ­methods require different skills from migration judges?

   3. Are the changes in the handling of cases and the way of working, temporary or permanent?

Legal professionals working in city and municipal government face changes in expectations about their roles within the organisation. Where in the past they mostly took on the reactive and detached role of guardians of legal quality, these days they are expected to take a more flexible, solution-oriented and cooperative stance. How do these legal professionals handle this shift? How far do they go in adapting and which factors play a role? Based on three different positions within the organisation I describe this process, focusing in particular on their perception of their professional roles, and their willingness to change. I conclude with some critical comments on the changing expectations from legal professionals.

This article deals with the different expectations that government representatives face in court, where they need on the one hand be responsive to the demands of the judge and on the other hand are expected to defend the decision that was taken by the government body.

In this article we study a case of responsive law, i.e. the Dutch Social Support Act, which entails the open norm to provide tailored support as the antithesis of universal ‘one-size-fits-all-solutions’. Rather than assessing clients’ needs based on check lists, street-level bureaucrats are expected to jointly explore fitting solutions in dialogue with citizens during a so-called kitchen table talk. The space to tailor support to the individual situation, however, creates ambiguity about the interpretation of this open norm and conflicting expectations with regard to stakeholders’ roles. This role-ambiguity is not only situated in the interaction between professional and citizen at the kitchen table, but is nested in a multi-actor network of policy makers, frontline workers, clients of social support, lawyers and judges. In this article we zoom in on this network to investigate how multiple stakeholders cope with ambiguity regarding the interpretation of the open norm and each other’s roles. The conducted qualitative study (observations, interviews and document analysis) provides revealing insights into the strategies employed by multiple actors when role-ambiguity emerges, including strategies of standardization, proto professionalization and objectification. These strategies cannot be seen in isolation from one another and their interaction results in the unintended effect of more rules and administrative burden and less discretionary space for tailored support. Based on these findings we argue that mutual trust and insights into the various roles within this network is of great importance in order to prevent rule-reflex. In addition, professionals should be better equipped to conduct open dialogues about what constitutes appropriate support with the client. Finally, sufficient financial leeway is needed for municipalities so that they are not forced to constantly seek the legal boundaries of what can be regarded as the minimum variant of social support.