Conclusion
Legal aid in Finland began in the 1880s when Helsinki appointed its first advocate for the poor. In the 1880s, a number of factors came together, which made the question of legal aid to the indigent critical.
First, indusÂtrialisation, urbanisation, and the growth of the working class are crucial elements. The growth of wage labour caused increasing numbers of disÂputes about wages and other disputes with employers. At the same time, areas where workers lived were densely populated and living conditions were often poor. Disputes with landlords about rent and other issues occurred. Societal changes coincide with changes in legislation and in the legal profession. Professional advocacy began to gain ground in the 1870s and 1880s, and the fear of unscrupulous lay advocates was voiced in newsÂpapers, for example. Lay advocates, of course, could be found throughout the nineteenth century. However, by the 1880s, their threat grew, as the number of indigent people with legal problems, possibly dependant on such lay advocates, was growing. Newspapers were active participants in societal debates, and they frequently discussed legal issues too. Legal aid was one of these topics, and, thus, the question reached a wide audience across the country. Moreover, reform organisations, contributors to the creation of legal aid reforms in many countries, blossomed in Helsinki at the time.In a sense, one can see the system of advocates for the poor in Finland as a legal transplant because the Swedish example was so strong.[542] It seems that the idea of organising legal aid in Finland accelerated in 1883 when newspapers reported that Stockholm was about to appoint advocates for the poor. More importantly, experiences from Gothenburg were referÂenced extensively. Indeed, at first, the Helsinki town council did not even draft guidelines for the poor’s advocate—referring to Gothenburg’s pracÂtice and to the requirements of “skilfulness, impartiality, and good will” which would be sufficient guidance for him.[543] It is no surprise that Finland followed Sweden’s example in organising legal aid.
Nor was there much need to adjust the model to fit Finnish circumstances. Finland shared its past with Sweden and its judiciary was essentially the same. In the nineÂteenth century, it was common for Finland to look to Sweden for inspiration when modernising its legislation. Many legal reforms had taken place there a couple of decades earlier.[544]From a broad perspective, Finland’s path to organising legal aid is not unique. Industrialisation, urbanisation, and the growth of the working class as well as the involvement of women’s associations and the role of philanthropy are highly relevant factors in other countries, as well. However, it is worth pondering why legal aid was organised in the way it was, with the capital Helsinki setting the example by paying a lawyer to work as an advocate for the poor. Certainly, internationally there would have been many examples of organising it differently. Why were lawyers not obliged to take on legal aid cases pro bono, for example? Here one needs to consider the state of the legal profession in Finland. The number of advocates in late-nineteenth-century Finland was still small, and more importantly, advocates had not organised themselves, yet. Anyone could call himself an advocate, even without any legal training. In such circumÂstances, it would have been difficult to mandate advocates to do pro bono work. The Chapter on Trials of the Law of 1734, as we know, had this kind of provision, but it had not been suitable for the lay-dominated judiÂciary in Sweden and Finland, and had remained a dead letter. The strucÂtures of society and the state of the legal profession in any country set preconditions for the way legal aid could be organised. The fact that Helsinki was the first Finnish town to appoint a poor’s advocate is underÂstandable. It was facing the biggest challenges associated with the growth of the working class, but it was also the centre of various associations and philanthropic activities, as well as the centre of the growing legal profesÂsion.
However, it did not take long for other towns to follow suit: Vyborg appointed a poor’s advocate in 1888, Turku in 1893, and Tampere in 1895.[545]It is significant that the Finnish women’s movement vociferously lobÂbied for legal aid in Helsinki. It was one of the first questions the associaÂtion addressed right after its founding in 1884. Members of the association lobbied actively, discussed strategy, and organised the collection of signaÂtures for the petition. It seems clear that the Helsingfors Dagblad worked together with the women in order to promote the issue. Moreover, legal aid does seem to have benefitted especially poor women—just as the Women’s Association had envisaged. Here, one can see distinct parallels with Germany and the U.S. Researching the extent of the Women’s Association’s efforts required searching its archives and examining the minutes of the discussions. The records of the Helsinki town council do not reveal that the initiative was made by the Women’s Association, and only one newspaper article mentioned their efforts a couple of years later and only in passing. Not even the Women’s Association paid much attenÂtion to this achievement in its anniversary publications. Felice Batlan has shown how in the U.S., there were deliberate attempts to rewrite the hisÂtory of legal aid to exclude women’s contributions to it.[546] However, I would argue that, in Finland, the main reason why we do not know about the Women’s Association’s involvement in organising legal aid, is simply that the history of Finnish legal aid has not been researched at all. While in 1884, the Finnish Women’s Association acted passionately on the quesÂtion of legal aid, in the long run, it had even more important questions of women’s equality to fight for, including women’s suffrage.
Although the Women’s Association’s role in establishing legal aid was crucial, one must remember that the question of legal aid was very topical in Finland in the 1880s. Eventually, this issue would have been addressed even if the women’s movement had not put it on its agenda. In the 1880s, various circumstances came together, making the time ripe for creating legal aid. The employment of the Helsinki advocate for the poor in 1886 marked the beginning of public legal aid in Finland. While in the early twentieth century, the poor’s advocates were criticised by the labour moveÂment, public legal aid still remained in the hands of the municipalities. The Helsinki Legal Aid Office, created in 1911 when the poor’s advocate and his assistant were given assigned premises, is still functioning today.