The master's thesis “The (im) possible future of the social legal profession (Dutch: De (on)mogelijke toekomst van de sociale advocatuur)” by Erasmus School of Law alumnus Elise Korbee, is attracting the attention of various media, including Het Advocatenblad, the Nederlands Juristenblad, and thus feeds the debate about funded legal aid.
Lawyers who depend on the funded legal aid for their income do not earn nearly enough. The independent Van der Meer Committee came to this conclusion at the end of 2017. The committee calculated that the cabinet would have to allocate an additional 127 million euros annually to guarantee a reasonable income. The cabinet sees this differently. Citizens should, on the contrary, look for a solution to their legal problems themselves. If it were up to the Minister for Legal Protection (Rechtsbescherming) Sander Dekker, people would be less likely to go to court for matters such as divorces, labour disputes, rental disputes, debts and neighbourly disputes. He wants a gatekeeper to come.
Interesting solutions from across the border
In her master's thesis, "The (im) possible future of the social legal profession. An ABC to improve the current system”, Elise Korbee examines what we can learn from the Swedish and Irish funded legal aid systems. She also interviews (former) social lawyers and other relevant discussion partners from the Netherlands and Sweden.
According to Elise, interesting solutions from across the border include the Scottish peer review system, the quality surcharge and the hour cap applied in Sweden, the Irish and Swedish judicial discretion also requests, and the cost recovery in the case of profit, according to Irish example, to promote equality.
- More information
Read the Dutch written thesis of Elise Korbee here (Master's thesis Toga aan de Maas, Erasmus School of Law, supervisors: Dr J.S. Nan and Dr J.W. Hiah, rating: 8.5)