This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This edited collection provides a comprehensive analysis of the differences and similarities between civil legal aid schemes in the Nordic countries whilst outlining recent legal aid transformations in their respective welfare states. Based on in-depth studies of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland, the authors compare these cases with legal aid in Europe and the US to examine whether a single, unique Nordic model exists. Contextualizing Nordic legal aid in relation to welfare ideology and human rights, Hammerslev and Halvorsen Ronning consider whether flaws in the welfare state exist, and how legal aid affects disadvantaged citizens. Concluding that the five countries all have very different legal aid schemes, the authors explore an important general trend: welfare states increasingly outsourcing legal aid to the market and the third sector through both membership organizations and smaller voluntary organizations. A methodical and compassionate text, this book will be of special interest to scholars and students of the criminal justice, the welfare state, and the legal aid system.

This book presents an invaluable collection of essays by eminent scholars from a wide variety of disciplines on the main issues currently confronting legal professions across the world. It does this through a comparative analysis of the data provided by the reports on 46 countries in its companion volume: Lawyers in 21st-Century Societies: Vol. 1: National Reports (Hart 2020). Together these volumes build on the seminal collection Lawyers in Society (Abel and Lewis 1988a; 1988b; 1989). The period since 1988 has seen an acceleration and intensification of the global socio-economic, cultural and political developments that in the 1980s were challenging traditional professional forms. Together with the striking transformation of the world order as a result of the fall of the Soviet bloc, neo-liberalism, globalisation, the financialisation of capitalism, technological innovations, and the changing demography of lawyers, these developments underscored the need for a new, comparative exploration of the legal professional field. This volume deepens the insights in volume 1, with chapters on legal professions in Africa, Latin America, the Islamic world, emerging economies, and former communist regimes. It also addresses theoretical questions, including the sociology of lawyers and other professions (medicine, accountancy), state production, the rule of law, regional bodies, large law firms, access to justice, technology, casualisation, cause lawyering, diversity (gender, race, and masculinity), corruption, ethics regulation, and legal education. Together with volume 1, it will inform and challenge conceptions of the contemporary profession, and stimulate and support further research.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This edited collection provides a comprehensive analysis of the differences and similarities between civil legal aid schemes in the Nordic countries whilst outlining recent legal aid transformations in their respective welfare states. Based on in-depth studies of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland, the authors compare these cases with legal aid in Europe and the US to examine whether a single, unique Nordic model exists. Contextualizing Nordic legal aid in relation to welfare ideology and human rights, Hammerslev and Halvorsen Ronning consider whether flaws in the welfare state exist, and how legal aid affects disadvantaged citizens. Concluding that the five countries all have very different legal aid schemes, the authors explore an important general trend: welfare states increasingly outsourcing legal aid to the market and the third sector through both membership organizations and smaller voluntary organizations. A methodical and compassionate text, this book will be of special interest to scholars and students of the criminal justice, the welfare state, and the legal aid system.

The world's legal professions have undergone dramatic changes in the 30 years since publication of the landmark three-volume Lawyers in Society, which launched comparative sociological studies of lawyers. This is the first of two volumes in which scholars from a wide range of disciplines, countries and cultures document and analyse those changes. The present volume presents reports on 46 countries, with broad coverage of North America, Western Europe, Latin America, Asia, Australia, North Africa and the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and former communist countries. These national reports address: the impact of globalisation and neoliberalism on national legal professions (the relationship of lawyers and their professional associations to the state and tensions between state and citizenship); changes in lawyer demography (rapidly growing numbers and the profession's efforts to retain control, the entry of women and obstacles to full gender equality, ethnic diversity); legal education (the proliferation of institutions and pedagogic innovation); the regulation of lawyers; structures of production (especially the growth of large firms and the impact of technology and paraprofessionals); the distribution of lawyers across roles; and access to justice (state-funded legal aid and pro-bono services). The juxtaposition of the reports reveals the dramatic transformations of professional rationales, labour markets, and working practices and the multiple contingencies of the role of lawyers in societies experiencing increasing juridification within a new geopolitical order.