Papp_Viktor_Ugyvedi_praxis

The aim of this paper is to present the process of professionalization, which began and gained momentum in the nineteenth century, from the “bottom up,” from the perspective of both the participants and the practitioners of the profession. Based on ego documents such as diaries and memoirs written by lawyers, the analysis queries whether lawyers in the nineteenth century considered legal representation as a profession per se. This approach is necessary because the sources do not relate aspects of collegiality or solidarity, and consequently remain silent about questions of belonging to a community or a profession too. The study, thus, uses the concepts of s‘space of experience’ and ‘horizon of expectation’ as defined by Reinhart Koselleck. In this vein, those passages are extracted from the life stories that reveal the moment of commitment to the legal profession, and in other cases, the dilemmas of choosing between the legal profession and other careers.