Abstract

In Italy newly-recruited magistrates must undergo a 18-month apprenticeship through which they come to know their institution and role. Adopting an ethnographic approach, this paper intends to describe the interpretative procedures shared by trainees during the apprenticeship period and that contribute to producing their professional identity. In fact, newcomers in a legal context try to adapt attitudes and behaviours in everyday activities and practices to the rules applied by experts. Professional training is considered not as a self-evident phenomenon but as an instance of the social construction of the magistrate's identity.