«L’istituto del gratuito patrocinio così com’è regolato non basta». L’Ufficio di assistenza legale per i poveri di Milano, dalla Società Umanitaria all’ente autonomo

In 1865 Italy abandoned the Legal Aid model inherited from the Kingdom of Sardinia, which mixed a salaried staff with a pro bono model and switched to an exclusively pro bono model, justifying this change with economic and financial reasons. The new system, however, appeared from his very beginning very lacking, especially since the poor had no chance of being granted a legal advice until a Commission of lawyers and judges decided that his claims were not only reasonable, but also well grounded. Another problem was that every lawyer was obliged by the law to work entirely free of charge for the poor and this undermined frequently his commitment to the clients and their lawsuits. For these reasons, in the beginning of the XX century, some lawyers with a sensitivity for social problems tried to organize associations of motivated professionals, searching for private funding to solve many critical aspects encountered by the legislative model. This paper focused on the history of one of these associations, started in Milan with the help of the Humanitarian Society, a philanthropic institution which aim was to help the poor rising on his own, by programs of education and trainings for employment.