Legal advice for workers
K.J. Ståhlberg’s and Einar Böök’s activity as secretaries of the Helsinki board for workers’ affairs 1904-1913
Abstract
In 1904, the Helsinki board for workers’ affairs first employed a secretary whose task it was to give legal advice to workers. Utilising a variety of archival sources, this article discusses K.J. Ståhlberg’s and Einar Böök’s activities in that position. It examines the reasons for establishing this legal aid service in the first place, how legal advice for workers developed during Ståhlberg’s and Böök’s terms as secretaries, and what motivated both men to work with legal aid. In the late nineteenth century, the growing working class faced new kinds of legal problems, and there was a growing need for professional legal advice. However, workers were increasingly discontent with the existing municipal legal aid. To tackle this issue, the board for workers’ affairs also began to provide legal advice. The article shows how the number of clients grew during the research period, how the cases and types of advice became more varied, and how Böök especially took an active role in developing legal aid in Helsinki. It also argues that for both these liberal bourgeois men, working with legal aid was one manifestation of their progressive views of social policy. Their activities can also be seen in the broader context of access to justice in early twentieth-century Finland.
Keywords: legal aid; access to justice; workers; social policy; K.J. Ståhlberg; Einar Böök
