Ulrike A. C. Müller

Ulrike A. C. Müller is doing her doctorate at the Research Training Group "Welfare State and Interest Organizations".
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Main areas of interest:

• Law and social movements
• Lawyer research
• Gender research in law
• Anti-discrimination law

• Why legal practice by lawyers? The participatory potential of legal representation, in: Beatrice Brunhöber et al, Recht und Frieden - Wozu Recht? Conferences of the Young Forum for Philosophy of Law (JFR) in the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR), ARSP Supplement 140, Stuttgart 2014, pp. 137-146
• The General Equal Treatment Act from a lawyer's perspective. Of dark areas, judicial restraint and long-term potential, in: Josef Estermann (ed.), Der Kampf ums Recht. Actors and interests in the view of interdisciplinary legal research, Vienna and Beckenried, 2012, pp. 261-280
• Reference point justice or reference point movement? On the ease of losing the ability to form alliances and emancipatory power to act along with one's own positions, in: Forum Recht 4/2012, pp. 200-204
• Professional direct action. Left-wing advocacy without a collective clientele, in: Kritische Justiz 4/2011, pp. 448-464
• Discrimination in Germany. Vermutung und Fakten, Baden-Baden 2011 (Hubert Rottleuthner and Matthias Mahlmann, in collaboration with Hiroki Kawamura, Alexander Klose, Jenny Mahr, Ulrike Müller and Markus Schlaab)
• The fat years are over - Left-wing lawyers in Berlin yesterday & today, in: Rote Hilfe Zeitung 1/2010, p. 12-16
• Preventive detention as ultima ration? Interview with the Berlin defense lawyer Barbara Petersen, in: das freischüßler 17 (2009), pp. 18-21
• Politics of the Waiting Room and Professional Direct Action: Cause Lawyering in Private Practice in Berlin, 2006, http://www.iisj.net/iisj/de/politics-of-the-waiting-room-andprofessional-direct-action-cause-lawyering-in-private-practice-in-berlin.asp?cod=4010&nombre=4010&nodo=1927&orden=True&sesion=1348
• Shot down - The Aviation Security Act. The Federal Constitutional Court on § 14 III LuftSiG, in: das freischüßler 14 (2006), pp. 59-62
• Losing the constitution. The draft constitution of the GDR Round Table 1989/90, in: das freischüßler 14 (2006), pp. 54-56, http://akj.rewi.hu-berlin.de/zeitung/06-14/pdf/mueller_runde-tisch-verf.pdf
• It could have been worse. What the private autonomy of the majority society has to fear from an anti-discrimination law, in: das freischüßler (2005), pp. 51-55
• Der Denkmantel von Gleichheit und Objektivität, in: das freischüßler, Erstsemesterheft 2002, pp. 11-14 (and subsequent Erstsemesterhefte 2003-2006)

Degrees:

• First state examination in law (2004, Berlin)
• Master of Arts in the Sociology of Law (2007, Oñati/Spain)
• Second state examination in law (2009, Berlin)

Professional career:

2007 - 2009

Legal clerkship at the Berlin Court of Appeal

2008 - 2012

Research assistant at the Free University of Berlin

2012 - 2013

Research assistant at the European University Viadrina

2013

Worked as a freelancer for the Humboldt University of Berlin

Legal Consciousness and Movement in Law - The Impacts of Legal Counseling Using the Example of Cases Regarding Unemployment Benefits

Dissertation within the Graduiertenkolleg Wohlfahrtsstaat und Interessenorganisationen (Welfare State and Interest Organisations) at University of Kassel - Research Abstr

Ulrike A. C. Müller

My doctoral thesis focusses on legal counselling with regard to welfare law, precisely to the law on unemployment benefits (Arbeitslosengeld II, ALG II). Since the reform of German law regarding unemployment benefits in 2005, the number of respective welfare court cases has risen strongly. The conflicts in court do not only concern the amount of benefits but also societal aspects like the recognition of personhood and subjectivities. They can be considered a continuation of the intense protests which took place during the legislative process. Both old and new collective actors, like unions and unemployed people's initiatives got involved into the phenomenon by offering legal counselling. The research seeks to find out how legal counselling and court cases influence the legal consciousness of unemployed people, their disposition to engage in collective action, and the changes within unions and unemployed people's initiatives. The study is guided by four main research questions:

- Does legal counselling and representation in welfare court cases strengthen the legal consciousness of unemployed people?

- Does legal counselling by collective actors mobilize plaintiffs to collective action?

- What differences do occur between legal counselling by lawyers in private practices, by unions and by unemployed people's initiatives?

- Does the high number of court cases lead to an institutionalization of unemployed people's initiatives and to a change of priorities of unions?

These questions will be answered with the use of qualitative interviews with plaintiffs and representatives of collective actors, added by organizational data and statistical data regarding welfare court activity. Legal consciousness is conceptualized as the consciousness of bearing individual rights, thus acting as a legal subject instead of asking for charity.

The findings shall provide information regarding the questions of the law's potential to address socio-economic conflicts and the law's function within the development of social security. They will be related to the hypothesis of a new and bigger importance of law in pluralized societies with multiple lines of conflicts when it comes to the negotiation of collective interests.

Drawing on a Gramscian concept, lawyers are sometimes described as organic intellectuals on behalf of capital1 who nevertheless are able to come up with important "discursive inventions "2 in support of subaltern groups. The frequent structural imbalance between parties in court - individual "One-Shotters" on the one side, administration and companies as "Repeat Players" on the other side3 - points to a sceptical assessment of this possibility. Consequently, some authors refer to an inherent tendency of legal representation to further only civil and poltical rights and do not assume any possibility of to take up socio-economic questions legally.4 Contrary to that, my hypothesis is that legal representation bears a specific potential to support socio-economically deprived people through a strengthening of their legal consciousness and to improve the conditions for collective action.

Using the example of cases regarding unemployment benefits creates the possibility to shed light on "one of the huge areas of conflict in the present age, both in the political and societal dimension as in the individual fight for law "5, which has implications as well for individual persons seeking justice as for collective actors. General, collective aspects were voiced in lively street protests during the legislative process in 2003/04. Mobilization was temporarily very successfull6 even though the support by unions was reluctant. By that, the protests were extremely unique in German protest live and hint to the emergence of a new collective actor. The period of strong but unsuccessful street protests is followed by a constant high number of legal actions since the reformed law's implementation.7 In these disputes, socio- and socio-cultural aspects are linked in such a way that "conflicts around administrative decisions on benefits can from a subective perspective turn into a fight for the acknowledgment of one's life-time achievement and personhood "8. These conflicts have been picked up by unions - constituting an established interest organization - and by unemployed people's initiatives - a new interest organization - offering legal counselling. The research aks whether a strengthening of the legal consciousness of unemployed people, in connection with a subjective perception of legitimation of one's interests, can lead to the mobilization of people concerned, to changes of current interest organizations and to the emergence of new ones.

1 Cain, Maureen E. "The Symbol Traders." In Lawyers in a Postmodern World: Translation and Transgression, edited by Maureen E. Cain and Christine B. Harrington. New York: New York University Press, 1994.

2 Ibid, p. 42; see also Buckel, Sonja. "Zwischen Schutz Und Maskerade - Kritik(en) Des Rechts." In Kritik Und Materialität, edited by Alex Demirovic, 110-31. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2008, and Buckel, Sonja, and Andreas Fischer-Lescano. "Hegemonie Im Globalen Recht - Zur Aktualität Der Gramscianischen Rechtstheorie." In Hegemonie Gepanzert Mit Zwang: Zivilgesellschaft Und Politik Im Staatsverständnis Antonio Gramscis, edited by Sonja Buckel and Andreas Fischer-Lescano, 1st ed. 85-104. Staatsverständnisse, vol. 11. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2007.

3 Galanter, Marc. "Why the 'Haves' Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal Change." In The Legal Studies Reader: a Conversation & Readings About Law, edited by Wright, George and Cuzzo, Maria W. Teaching Texts in Law and Politics, v. 9. New York: P. Lang, 2004.

4 Halliday, Terence C., and Lucien Karpik, eds. Lawyers and the Rise of Western Political Liberalism: Europe and North America from the Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries. Oxford Socio-legal Studies. Oxford : New York: Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, 1997.

5 Höland, Armin, Felix Welti, and Sabine Schmidt. "Continuously Growing Flood of Lawsuits in the Social Courts? - Findings, Explanations, Options for Action." SGb - Die Sozialgerichtsbarkeit, 2008, 689-97 [translation U.M.].

6 With the peak of a mass demonstration in November 2003 of 100,000 people, mobilized by an alliance of local Anti-Hartz initiatives, small subdivisions of unions and the NGO attac, and without support from the leading level of unions or other established collective actors; and weekly "Monday demonstrations" organized in several cities in summer 2004, Rein, Harald. "Proteste von Arbeitslosen." In Die Sozialen Bewegungen in Deutschland Seit 1945. Ein Handbuch, edited by Roth, Roland and Rucht, Dieter, 593-611, 2008.

7 Numbers of legal actions filed at welfare law courts concerning ALG II: 2005: 38,960; 2009: 151,674;(https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/ GesellschaftStaat/Rechtspflege/Gerichtsverfahren/Tabellen/Sozialgerichte.html, retrieved on 16.01.2013); 2012:188,215 , with success rates between 33% (2005) and 44% (2010) (ibid.).

8 Höland/Welti/Schmidt 2008, p. 689 [translation U.M.].

The dissertation project examines the effects of social law legal advice on unemployment benefit II (ALG II) on the legal awareness of the plaintiffs and on collective actors.

The legal dispute about ALG II shows a very high level of complaints and continues an intensive protest process in the legislative phase. These conflicts concern not only the level of social benefits, but also socio-cultural aspects such as the recognition of personalities and subject positions, and have been taken up by established and new collective actors. The dissertation project examines the impact of legal advice and lawsuits on the legal awareness of the unemployed, on the willingness to act collectively and on established and new interest organizations. The specific research questions are:

Do legal advice and representation in social court proceedings have the effect of strengthening the legal awareness of the unemployed? Does legal advice in conjunction with collective actors mobilize claimants to participate in collective action? What differences exist between legal advice provided by lawyers, trade unions and initiatives for the unemployed? Does the high level of legal action lead to an institutionalization of initiatives for the unemployed and a shift in priorities among trade unions?

These questions are answered on the basis of qualitative interviews with plaintiffs and representatives of collective actors as well as supplementary organizational data and judicial statistics.

The results can provide clues as to the extent to which law is suitable for addressing socio-economic conflicts and what role law plays in the development of social security. This also touches on the thesis that court proceedings in a pluralized society with diverse lines of conflict take on a new, greater significance for the negotiation of collective conflicts of interest.

"Legal Awareness and Movement in the Law. The effects of legal advice using the example of ALG II proceedings"