Legal Assistance
What can I do if I need help from a lawyer or want to go to court, but don’t have enough money to do so?
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Legal Counseling
Anyone in Germany can hire a lawyer and/or go to court to ensure that they get justice. But both of these steps will cost you some money. If you don’t have enough money for this, you can get help.
If you need advice from a lawyer, you can get legal counseling (“Beratungshilfe”). For this, you have to go to the district court (“Amtsgericht”) and ask for a counseling certificate (“Beratungsschein”):
Erdgeschoss Zimmer 017
Synagogenplatz 1
96047 Bamberg (Hausanschrift)
0951 / 8 33 – 20 17
https://www.justiz.bayern.de/gerichte-und-behoerden/amtsgerichte/bamberg/verfahren_10.php
Financial Aid for Court Cases
If you file a lawsuit with a court in order to get justice, it will also cost you some money at first. For this, you can receive public support under certain conditions as well. This is called “Prozesskostenhilfe”.
The application for this is usually made by the lawyer who also files the lawsuit on your behalf. After that, it will be checked whether you have a good chance of winning the case. In addition, it is checked whether you really don’t have enough money to pay the costs of the process yourself.
Insurance for Legal Expenses
One way of getting reimbursed for the costs of a lawyer or court proceedings is to take out insurance for legal expenses (“Rechtsschutzversicherung”). This has a number of pros and cons, and there are many different ways to do it. Therefore, you should inform yourself well before signing any contract, for example here:
