Grigory Gorbun (he/him) is a legal and linguistic anthropologist studying how the authority of law is produced and contested beyond conventional legal and political institutions. His research relies on ethnography, interviews, and interactional analysis to reveal how attitudes toward law are transferred, upheld, and anchored in socially recognizable patterns of communication. Gorbun completed his MA in Anthropology of Law from Université Paris-I Panthéon-Sorbonne and a PhD in Anthropology at the University of Chicago.
At the American Bar Foundation, Gorbun will work on a book project, tentatively titled “Law Games: Moot Court Jurisdiction,” which will examine how moot court competitions—pedagogical litigation simulations originating in the United States—shape contemporary imaginations of law, authority, and professional identity. Based on fieldwork in Russia and international competitions, this project looks into how legal professionals leverage moot courts to perform an idealized version of law grounded in transnational professional expertise rather than state power, positioning their community as the source of authentic law’s authority amid a crisis of legal institutions. His work contributes to ongoing projects on globalization, legal education, and legal professionals, exploring how these pedagogical simulations influence the formation of legal ideology and professional jurisdiction claims.
Beyond this current project, Gorbun is working on legal ideology and education in France and police accountability in the United States. He is also developing work on transformative justice practices that seek alternatives to conventional legal frameworks.