Ole Hammerslev

The return of sociology in Danish socio-legal studies: a survey of recent trends

This paper surveys recent trends in the development of the sociology of law in Denmark. The overall argument of the paper is that, currently, the sociology of law in Denmark is marked by a striking sociological and more specifically institutional and empirical turn. This new direction in scholarship suggests not only a renewed research focus on the institutional dimensions of law but it also – and very differently from work from the 1980s and 1990s – suggests a re-orientation towards sociology more generally. A clear consequence of this return to the sociological core of the sociology of law has been an empirical orientation towards how law is practised, how legal institutions work and, as part of that, how the legal profession takes part in both legal change and transformations of state and society. This new research relies not only on general sociological theory and method but also on the more specific elite sociology, sociology of professions and sociology of knowledge.

Convergence and conflict perspectives in Scandinavian studies of the legal profession

This article focuses on classic Scandinavian studies of the legal profession. These classic studies, which followed World War II and the development of the Scandinavian welfare states, focused on national developments in the legal profession and its relevance to the development of the states and the markets. The studies are divided into convergence perspectives with Auberts studies dominating on the one hand, and conflict perspectives with Mathiesens studies dominating on the other. This article examines their similarities and differences in theoretical backgrounds, methodology and empirical data. It demonstrates how the two research traditions, despite their different theoretical perspectives, build their research on comparatively the same kind of empirical data and methodology and how they reach some of the same conclusions.

Legal Aid in the Nordic Countries

The chapter serves as the introduction to the collection, and provides the background for, and overview of, the book. The goal of the collection is to examine and compare civil legal aid in the Nordic countries in relation to the welfare state. An introduction to the common background of the Nordic countries and their legal aid schemes is compared to international developments in the field. The Nordic legal aid research, mainly empirical research on ‘unmet legal needs’, is reviewed, indicating a current remaining unmet need for legal aid. This overview reviews the chapters on legal aid in the different Nordic countries (which serve to describe and analyse the national schemes), the case studies (which serve to develop on features and challenges of the public schemes), and a final section that serves to contextualise the studies of the Nordic schemes in a European and theoretical perspective.

Outsourcing Legal Aid in the Nordic Welfare States

The chapter gives an overarching analysis of the Nordic legal aid schemes, as described in this collection. The welfare state, and its development, serves as a common backdrop for the Nordic countries, and has influenced the legal aid schemes in all the countries. As the national reviews show, the schemes have adjusted to common challenges of cost and effectiveness, but failed to fully meet them. The development of the different national schemes has been divergent. Together with private legal expenses insurances, a third sector of legal aid initiatives has developed in light of the failings of the public schemes. The chapter argues that this can be seen as a flaw in the Nordic welfare state model. The experiences of the new legal aid organisations might provide basis for a reform of the public systems, ensuring access to the law for everyone.

Juss-Buss [Law Bus]: A Student-run Legal Aid Clinic

Since its establishment, the legal clinic Juss-Buss has played an important role in providing outreach legal aid to disadvantaged groups that would otherwise struggle to name their legal problems, and claim their rights in core welfare areas where the welfare state has abdicated its social responsibility. An important aspect of Juss-Buss’ work is outreach legal aid to prisoners. In outreach work the staff aims to build trust in order to be able to start ‘troubles-talks’, and thus help transform prisoners’ problems into legal terms. However, prisoners are hard to reach, so Juss-Buss also tries to establish grievance structures that inform, educate and empower prisoners to voice their problems. Another important task that Juss-Buss undertakes is legal policy work to clarify the legal needs of different disadvantaged groups in society and to improve their living situations. Juss-Buss’ legal policy work is based on and strengthen by their tradition-bound and strong brand; supported by their collaboration with the Faculty of Law of University of Oslo; their network of former Juss-Buss students occupying important positions in the legal field; and their exceptional data covering.

Gadejuristen [The Street Lawyers]: Offering Legal Aid to Socially Marginalised People

Gadejuristen [The Street Lawyers] is an outreach legal aid organisation in Denmark that targets vulnerable groups on the streets, such as homeless, drug addicts, and sex workers. The welfare state was established to compensate for society’s shortcomings; yet, many socially marginalised people are not able to navigate in the welfare system due to its structure and the way it functions. Gadejuristen designs its legal aid and characteristic street lawyer method to meet the specific needs of the disadvantaged user group. At an individual level, Gadejuristen focuses on the user’s needs, and at a societal level, the organisation lobbies for new policies and laws, and changes in public institutions’ practices, in order to improve both the target group’s access to rights and the living situation of socially marginalised people.

Reforming the Bulgarian State of Knowledge: Legal Expertise as a Resource in Modelling States

Abstract The transformation of the Eastern European countries from communist states to EU members was supported by massive investments in Western discourses and social science knowledge and export programmes for these from the West to the East. In the West, and specifically in the US, a market for discourses and knowledge production professionalized and intertwined with institutions that exported specific forms of policy visions of US modes of the State. In the East, the importation of discourses and knowledge became pivotal in the struggles for power of modelling the state and its institutions, and thus as knowledge tools to guide and legitimize the path towards democracy and later towards membership of the EU. Based on the notion of co-production, this study focuses on how leading American and European lawyers, think tanks and different agencies were involved in the reorganisation of the Bulgarian field of power.