ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a detailed analysis of three criminal cases undertaken by Giovanni, a defense lawyer practicing in a small Vesuvian town—one of Naples's suburbs. It concentrates on the terms of the communication between the defense lawyer and his clients within both the legal environment and the milieu of organized crime. The chapter highlights the pragmatic grounds underlying the major turning points in the defense strategy. By analyzing the legal discourse in the everyday praxis of files opened and archived in the lawyer's office, it explores the spatio-temporal evolution of corruption as (im)perceptible sequences sneaking into the defense strategy. In order to clarify the terms and the stakes of the dialectical collaboration that forms the basis, a presentation of epistemological sources will precede the account of the sequences witnessed, re-visited, and re-enacted while following the ordinary praxis of Giovanni's case-load.
