Alternativen der Rechtsberatung: Dienstleistung, Fürsorge und kollektive Selbsthilfe
This paper criticizes the theoretical background of different forms of legal aid to socially and financially underprivileged groups. The existing patterns of the attorney-client type of legal service and the public provision of legal services have different effects on the relationships between a client and his counsellor and the manner in which a counsellor defines his client’s interest and acts to protect them. Legal services provided through union legal aid offices (die “Arbeitersekretariate”) around the turn of the century give a historical example of collective forms of legal services. For the same reasons that led to the development of socially protective regulations within the substantive law, the legal services offered by attorneys proved to be unsatisfactory for the socially underprivileged groups. There were two historical responses to this problem: A collective representation of interests and a welfare orientated “rule of law” approach (“Rechtsfriedensbewegung”, which constituted a countermovement to the “Arbeitersekretariate”). The ‘rule of law’ movement attempted to achieve a conflict-free integration of all social contradictions. Yet another way to provide social services has been followed by the British trade unions. Unlike the German unions they were not incorporated into the formal legal system, a fact which allowed them to develop their own “extra-legal” forms of negotiations with regard to labour conflicts.
Unentgeltliche Rechtsberatung in West-Berlin
Die Diskussion um eine Verstarkung der Rechtsberatungs- und Rechtshilfemoglichkeiten fur grose Teile der Bevolkerung, die bisher faktisch davon ausgeschlossen sind, hat in neuerer Zeit wieder breiten Raum eingenommen (1). Bedauerlicherweise ist weniger die Ursache und Begrundung eines von allen Autoren unterstellten Rechtsberatungsbedurfnis sozial Schwacher als vielmehr die Frage, wer unentgeltliche Rechtsberatung in welcher Form und von wem finanziert gewahren soll, Mittelpunkt der Diskussion. So scheint es in der Bundesrepublik im Gegensatz zu den skandinavischen Landern, Grosbritannien und den Niederlanden nur noch auf die Alternative eines Anwaltsmodells zur offentlichen Rechtsberatung anzukommen, wobei die Argumente aus verschiedensten Bereichen durchsetzt von den unterschiedlichsten Interessen an der Rechtsberatung gleichsam beliebig gewichtet nebeneinander stehen. Dieser Mangel in der theoretischen Diskussion schlagt sich ebenfalls in der Vielfalt probeweise eingefuhrter Beratungsmodelle (2) nieder, die gleichfalls der Dichotomie zwischen Anwaltsmodell und staatlicher Rechtsberatung folgen.
Two weddings and a lawsuit: Marriage litigation in fourteenth-century Portugal
Based on one of the few surviving records of marriage cases brought before
 ecclesiastical courts in fourteenth-century Portugal, this article offers a rare
 glimpse of marriage practice in a small village in a remote corner of Western Europe
 and the complex ties that bound its inhabitants and which secular and ecclesiastical
 authorities sought to regulate. Clear parallels can be drawn with the patterns of
 marriage litigation observed in England and Northern France, but evidence also
 suggests that royal legislation played an important part in the resolution of marital
 disputes and in the shaping of conjugal behaviour.