De l'engagement volontaire au bénévolat contraint : les épreuves et tribulations des solicitors en Angleterre et au pays de Galles du xixe au xxie siècles

• Main Author: Géraldine Gadbin-George
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre de Recherche et d'Etudes en Civilisation Britannique 2017-07-01
• Series: Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique
• Subjects: access to law; legal aid; not-for profit sector; solicitor; volunteering; welfare state.
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/1540

Volunteer work is part of British culture, and of solicitors’ ethics. At the end of the 19th century, the legal professions and the not-for profit sector committed themselves jointly to improve access of the poor to the law, with the state's blessing. At the end of the Second World War, the welfare state was set up and legal aid was created. For a while, the State tried to provide for everyone's needs. This situation changed with the arrival of the economic crisis. Unlike the poor, the middle classes found themselves excluded from the benefit of legal aid and solicitors willingly came to their rescue. The rolling-back of the welfare state since the Thatcher years, along with the anti-corporatist and austerity-based government policies changed the relationship which the State had previously maintained with the legal professions. By trying to find ways to coerce the solicitor profession into working for free, the state breached its social contract with solicitors.