In the last ten years I have been studying corporate lawyers and law firms in Portugal. Starting from a study on Economic Justice (AAVV, 2012) focusing on the relationship between law firms and the judiciary on developing new legislation to encourage national and international private investment. This study has finished before the Troika intervention (IMF, ECB, and EC) in the country and from that period a lot have changed. The Memorandum of Understanding highlighted the importance of establishing a new arbitration law (Santos, 2014) in line with international regulations promoting new channels to facilitate international arbitration. Corporate lawyers were at the forefront of new policies understanding the potential of arbitration in establishing international networks with other law firms and clients and expanding the business. From that period several national companies from strategic industries (energy, including renewal energies, infrastructures like airports, roads, aviation) were privatised or forced to renegotiate their contracts with international creditors using SWAPS. Corporate lawyers worked for both parties. The economic crisis also challenged Portuguese corporations to find new and old markets. The biggest corporations – construction, communications, retail, but also small ones moved to Africa, to Portuguese former colonies – Angola, Cabo Verde, Guine-Bissau, Mozambique exploring the potentials of a combination of fragile governments with former colonial privileges, international funds, and international aid programs. Portuguese law firms accompanied their clients benefiting from strong similarities within the legal systems in most a colonial heritage and, the lack of law professionals, another contingency of the underdevelopment of the colonial past. Lawyers assumed a role of mediators at a multilevel scale in between: i) jurisdictions; ii) investors /clients of the Global North and countries in the Global South; iii) government consultants and, iv) promoters of new legislation. In all these activities they are confronted with ethics and how to act and define barriers or red lines. To understand how lawyers act and reflect about their professional practices is proposed a multidimensional model that includes different dimensions: I) institutional – the role(s) of the law firm as a complex organisation; ii) collegial professionalism– the impact of others on ethical choices; iii) clients and the full-service paradigm as an ideology; iv) transnational networks – the involvement on international law firms, rankings ; v) colonial and neo-colonial networks – promoting and impacting the development of law practices in former colonies; vi) legal education – lawyers and law firms' invitations to participate in law faculties, promoting their ideas and values and recruiting students. Methodologically this proposal is based on a multi-methods approach combining interviews with partners, associates, and trainees from Portuguese and Mozambican law firms, documents produced by the Bar, legislation promoting investment and other documents. A special note on the importance of reflexivity in conducting fieldwork on a subject where power relations are crucial to understand (in)visible lines that delineates the relationship between professionals.

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legal ethics,legal professions