When the ground falls away from under you

On 7 February, Bolivia's president Evo Morales spoke at a triumphant meeting of thousands of his supporters in El Alto, the dusty town with striking views of La Paz spilling down the valley before it, which is home to many of the new immigrants to the capital from Bolivia's rural areas. Enacting a new constitution approved by 60 per cent of the population at a referendum two weeks before, he announced, "Mission accomplished for the re-founding of the new united Bolivia". The constitution reinforces the rights of the state, the Bolivian people and of individual communities - but that contains clear clashes with the status quo in the country. We convened a group of leading external and in-house lawyers to discuss just how one maintains a practice in such an environment.