The Legal Advice Centres of Charitable Organisations and Municipalities

In the mid-1890s, private charitable organisations were established, which founded public legal advice centres through the support of the urban mid­dle or intellectual class. These organisations were independent of both political parties and religious organisations.

The main aim of the legal advice centre in Frankfurt was similar to the Workers’ Secretariat and Catholic People’s Office: to provide advice on legal issues, especially social insurance and labour law. There, trained law­yers provided legal advice full time as employed staff. The basic idea of the People’s Home in Hamburg was “for the establishment of personal rela­tionship and mutual trust, to bring the rich and the poor together and thus, to give the educated and the rich an opportunity to get to know the workers’ lives and their needs with their own eyes.”^[386] So, in Hamburg, judges, prosecutors, practising lawyers, and other professional lawyers were active as counsellors part time and voluntarily.^[387]

In contrast to the Catholic People’s Office and the Workers’ Secretariats, which were considered to pursue the interests of their organisation or the working class, the Institutfur Gemeinwohl emphasised neutrality and non­partisanship.^[388] Interestingly, this principle was also applied in the context of the resolution of legal conflicts in which workers were involved.

Theoretically, public legal advice centres were able to represent their clients in civil cases in front of the Local Court (Amtsgericht, the court of the lowest instance for smaller claims),^[390] in which a lawyer’s representation was, and is still, not mandatory—or in front of the court for employment- related disputes (Gewerbegerichtand IKaufmannsgericht), in which lawyers were excluded from representing parties. The legal advice centres of chari­table organisations in Frankfurt, Hamburg, and other cities were, how­ever, reluctant to represent their clients in lawsuits, although their qualified legal experts were active as counsellors. Rather, they tried to avoid legal disputes. If a client was already involved in a legal dispute, the legal advice centres tried to settle it outside the court. They, especially the People’s Home in Hamburg, systematically organised mediations for cases in which their clients were involved. Their ideological background came from a movement towards “legal peace” (Rechtsfrieden)_y which was supported by some legal professionals as a reaction to liberalism and to jurist Rudolf von Jhering’s idea of “The Struggle for Law” (Kampfums Recht) embodied in the Civil Procedure Act.^[391] Their pursuits were, however, based on more practical thoughts. Civil cases in the Local Court often concerned workers and socially disadvantaged groups and involved small amounts of money. Such parties often did not have legal representation or advice even though such lawsuits could be a major burden for such people and could even lead to the destruction of their lives. Lawsuits could also put a strain on social relationships with the opposing party or others. Leading experts on legal advice and information argued that people did not possess enough money and legal knowledge to successfully pursue litigations.

The legal advice centres of charitable organisations were initiatives of the private sector, which were supported by municipalities. However, they only existed in larger cities. In the early twentieth century, municipalities gradually began to open their own legal advice centres. In response to urbanisation and the development of the working class, the role and importance of municipalities in providing relief to poor inhabitants increased. Thus, local authorities began to place their main emphasis on the improvement of the living conditions of the lower class, which included creating facilities for health, employment services, and unemployment funds, as well as providing legal information related to workers’ lives. These public legal advice services were also founded as part of anti-poverty efforts in the form of employment and housing services.^[393] The first legal advice offices of this kind were founded in 1896 in Hamm in Westphalia and later in the small city of Ruhla.^[394] Unlike Catholic People’s Offices and Workers’ Secretariats, municipal legal advice offices did not increase in the following years. Rather, as explained below, they started to be founded throughout the German Empire only after 1904, as a response to govern­mental measures.

In addition to providing the previously mentioned services, the munici­pal legal advice offices were also expected to unburden city authorities by informing and helping inhabitants regarding their applications for city ser­vices. So, besides workers’ legal issues, tenancy law and other civil law issues, the poor and public laws were also an important legal area.^[395] The counsellors of the municipal legal advice offices were mostly former court clerks or municipal employees in the social sector.^[396] They were not quali­fied legal experts.

The public legal advice centres primarily served the working class. within it, however, there were significant economic differences, due to industrial sectors, qualifications, sex, and age. During the Wilhelmine Period (1890-1918), these inequalities grew larger. In fact, the municipal legal advice offices and legal advice centres of charitable organisations did not strictly limit client eligibility based on income. More than half of them did not restrict their clients to the poor, and even when their services were restricted to the economically disadvantaged, the standard was flexible. Thus, the extrajudicial legal aid of municipalities and charitable organisa­tions covered a wide range of the population.^[399] In fact, the literature at the time often used the term “less economically advantaged people”

(minderbemittelter Volkskreis) instead of “the poor.”^[400] Furthermore, some legal advice centres of municipalities and charitable organisations provided legal advice even to employers, if they needed employment-related legal advice and information.^[401]