Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Hierarchy of Courts
- Glossary of Legal and Other Terms
- Abbreviations
- Preface
- 1 The Archimedean Point: Lawyers, Liberalism, and the Middle-Class Project
- 2 Freie Advokatur: The Blending of the Middle-Class and Professional Projects
- 3 Foundation of the Modern Profession: The Private Bar under the Lawyers' Statute
- 4 Institutional Framework: Lawyers and Honoratiorenpolitik
- 5 Growth and Diversification: Lawyers in the Province of Hannover, 1878–1933
- 6 Elites and Professional Ideology: Self-Discipline and Self-Administration by the Anwaltskammer Celle
- 7 Simultaneous Admission: The Limits of Honoratiorenpolitik
- 8 The Limits of Economic Liberalism: Freie Advokatur or Numerus Clausus?
- 9 The Limits of Political Liberalism: Lawyers and the Weimar State
- 10 Conclusion: Lawyers and the Limits of Liberalism
- Methodological Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Freie Advokatur: The Blending of the Middle-Class and Professional Projects
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Hierarchy of Courts
- Glossary of Legal and Other Terms
- Abbreviations
- Preface
- 1 The Archimedean Point: Lawyers, Liberalism, and the Middle-Class Project
- 2 Freie Advokatur: The Blending of the Middle-Class and Professional Projects
- 3 Foundation of the Modern Profession: The Private Bar under the Lawyers' Statute
- 4 Institutional Framework: Lawyers and Honoratiorenpolitik
- 5 Growth and Diversification: Lawyers in the Province of Hannover, 1878–1933
- 6 Elites and Professional Ideology: Self-Discipline and Self-Administration by the Anwaltskammer Celle
- 7 Simultaneous Admission: The Limits of Honoratiorenpolitik
- 8 The Limits of Economic Liberalism: Freie Advokatur or Numerus Clausus?
- 9 The Limits of Political Liberalism: Lawyers and the Weimar State
- 10 Conclusion: Lawyers and the Limits of Liberalism
- Methodological Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Gneist's publication of The Free Legal Profession in 1867 provided impetus and momentum to the movement to reform the legal profession that carried over beyond German unification in 1871 and culminated in the adoption of the Imperial Justice Laws in 1877–9. But its very importance and dramatic success also raise two questions. First, why were the reforms necessary in the first place; that is, how did the subjection of lawyers in private practice to the state, which Gneist saw as the obstacle to their fulfilling the normative role that he prescribed for them, come about? Second, a single call for reform could not have had such dramatic success unless it built upon previous reform efforts and fell upon fertile ground for change. What was the background upon which Gneist's prescriptions must be considered; what were the reasons that they were so quickly legislated into law?
Lawyers in private practice, especially in Prussia, had never attained the position of primacy within the larger legal profession that they had in France or especially in England. In fact, they had suffered over the course of the eighteenth century from a consistent pattern of royal and governmental hostility, in which they saw their numbers, incomes, and privileges reduced and ultimately the legitimacy and the very existence of their profession challenged.
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- Information
- From General Estate to Special InterestGerman Lawyers 1878–1933, pp. 25 - 58Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996