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The chapter serves as the introduction to the collection, and provides the background for, and overview of, the book. The goal of the collection is to examine and compare civil legal aid in the Nordic countries in relation to the welfare state. An introduction to the common background of the Nordic countries and their legal aid schemes is compared to international developments in the field. The Nordic legal aid research, mainly empirical research on ‘unmet legal needs’, is reviewed, indicating a current remaining unmet need for legal aid. This overview reviews the chapters on legal aid in the different Nordic countries (which serve to describe and analyse the national schemes), the case studies (which serve to develop on features and challenges of the public schemes), and a final section that serves to contextualise the studies of the Nordic schemes in a European and theoretical perspective.

The chapter analyses civil legal aid in Norway. It gives a brief review of the history of the legal aid scheme in Norway, a detailed description of the public legal aid scheme, and how the public scheme relates to third sector legal aid initiatives. In general, the chapter paints a picture of the Norwegian legal aid scheme as a traditional oriented and well-funded social support scheme, originating on the basis of a traditional welfare state ideology. However, the public scheme is struggling to meet the need for legal aid. The third sector legal aid, such as student run legal aid clinics and special outreach legal aid organisations, has developed alongside the public scheme. This development gives reason to question whether the current legal aid scheme is in keeping with welfare state ideals.

Sweden has a combination of public and private protection of legal expenses in civil cases. The public legal aid scheme is subsidiary to the legal expense insurance, which means anyone who had a legal expense insurance covering the current affair would not receive legal aid. The chapter aims at reviewing the current legal aid in the country with emphasis on the public legal aid scheme and the legal expense insurance. The text also includes discussions on the function of the legal aid scheme in relation to the welfare state and from an access to justice perspective, pointing out strengths and weaknesses of the legal aid policies and practices.

The chapter describes and analyses civil legal aid in Finland. It gives a brief introduction to the history and development of the Finnish legal aid scheme, a detailed description of the current system and its functioning, and the relation to the welfare state. Third sector legal aid initiatives and legal aid policy are also discussed. In general, the Finnish system is notable for its reliance on public legal aid offices and liberal eligibility criteria. The public legal aid offices are supplemented by judicare lawyers, in a mixed legal aid model. The model gives access to legal assistance in a holistic and quasi-universal way. However, also the Finnish model is challenged by issues such as funding cuts and critique of lacking independence. Current developments of the scheme strive to meet these challenges, by implementing new measures such as e-services and other modern legal aid approaches.

There is a strong tradition of legal aid in Denmark and of legal aid based on voluntary work. Research has shown a widespread need for legal aid, and that legal aid makes a difference. This chapter describes the public legal aid scheme in Denmark (in regard to both pre-trial legal aid and free legal aid), the various providers of legal aid and the use of the different forms of legal aid. In 2007, a reform was made concerning civil court cases. The purpose of this was to give better access to justice. However, after the reform there was a drastic decrease in spending on legal aid.

The aim of the chapter is to give a brief overview of the development of legal aid in civil cases in Iceland. The current law, which came into force in 1992, allows for legal aid to be granted not only on the basis of low economic status, but also if the outcome of the case is deemed to have great public or individual significance. The latter criterion, however, remains contested, seemingly as a matter of right-wing vs. left-wing politics. The discussion on legal aid has, however, mostly been framed in narrow legalistic terms in response to suggestions to cut state costs. It is therefore difficult to discern whether and to what extent legal aid in Iceland is conceptualised as a charity, right, or individual responsibility.

Since its establishment, the legal clinic Juss-Buss has played an important role in providing outreach legal aid to disadvantaged groups that would otherwise struggle to name their legal problems, and claim their rights in core welfare areas where the welfare state has abdicated its social responsibility. An important aspect of Juss-Buss’ work is outreach legal aid to prisoners. In outreach work the staff aims to build trust in order to be able to start ‘troubles-talks’, and thus help transform prisoners’ problems into legal terms. However, prisoners are hard to reach, so Juss-Buss also tries to establish grievance structures that inform, educate and empower prisoners to voice their problems. Another important task that Juss-Buss undertakes is legal policy work to clarify the legal needs of different disadvantaged groups in society and to improve their living situations. Juss-Buss’ legal policy work is based on and strengthen by their tradition-bound and strong brand; supported by their collaboration with the Faculty of Law of University of Oslo; their network of former Juss-Buss students occupying important positions in the legal field; and their exceptional data covering.

[The Street Lawyers] is an outreach legal aid organisation in Denmark that targets vulnerable groups on the streets, such as homeless, drug addicts, and sex workers. The welfare state was established to compensate for society’s shortcomings; yet, many socially marginalised people are not able to navigate in the welfare system due to its structure and the way it functions. designs its legal aid and characteristic street lawyer method to meet the specific needs of the disadvantaged user group. At an individual level, focuses on the user’s needs, and at a societal level, the organisation lobbies for new policies and laws, and changes in public institutions’ practices, in order to improve both the target group’s access to rights and the living situation of socially marginalised people.

This chapter examines ex-prisoners’ need for legal aid and how legal aid could be organised, to fit in with their living conditions and the many hardships they face post-release in Denmark. Based on a larger qualitative study of prison release in Denmark, the chapter discusses the ex-prisoners’ complex legal and non-legal problems. This is followed by an examination of the ex-prisoners’ struggle to name their interrelated problems as legal issues and difficulties in approaching legal services for assistance. In relation to the ex-prisoners’ struggle to name their legal needs, as well as blame and claim their legal rights, the chapter draws on observations and evaluations from various projects aiming to meet vulnerable citizens’ need for legal support and discusses the challenges and opportunities involved in providing legal aid to ex-prisoners in Denmark.

The analysis starts with the schemes organised by the legal aid acts in Finland and Norway and discusses the welfare ideas behind. It outlines the main ideas about legal aid in the ‘access to justice’ ideology of human rights as developed in European Court of Human Rights’ case law, and compares it to the welfare ideology of Nordic legal aid. The chapter describes the ideas behind an initiative of the Council of Europe to build a new institutionthe European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ)that works to improve access to justice in Europe. The final part uses CEPEJ statistics to provide some basic information about the present state of the existing legal aid schemes in Europe. Conclusions are drawn on how the Nordic schemes meet welfare challenges, their performance in a European perspective and whether human rights might become a driver for legal aid reform in Europe.