Legal Aid in Sweden

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