Hans Soldan Foundation
The Hans Soldan Foundation is a foundation to promote the training and further education of lawyers and notaries .
Hans Soldan
Hans Soldan was born in Friedberg, Hesse, in 1870 to a family of pastors and teachers. After graduating from high school in Worms, he first studied philosophy and later switched to the law faculty. In 1896, after completing his legal studies and preparatory service, he settled as a lawyer at the district court in Worms and then worked as a lawyer at the Mainz regional court and later at the Darmstadt Higher Regional Court .
Hans Soldan took up his legal practice in 1897 when he was admitted to the Mainz District Court.
In 1908 Soldan took over the Deutsche Rechtsanwalts-Zeitung (DRAZ), which was founded in 1904 in Berlin by RA Justizrat Kolsen. His essays in the DRAZ made him famous, and many lawyers appreciated his work. Under his leadership, the DRAZ became a critical forum for class political disputes, which in his opinion was not enough to make class politics .
Origin of the name of the Soldan family
The surname Soldan comes from the Turkish officer Sadok Seli Soltan , who was kidnapped by the German military during the Crusades and later converted to Christianity. This fact makes him one of the descendants of this Turkish officer.
Economic Association of German Lawyers
In 1908 Soldan founded the Economic Association of German Lawyers . This association was the cornerstone for the Hans Soldan Foundation and Hans Soldan GmbH, which are still active today.
The aim of the “Economic Association of German Lawyers” was to organize the joint purchase of all office needs of the members while bypassing the middlemen and to supply the members with office supplies as cheaply as possible . In addition, funds should also be obtained to create a common professional institution. The year 1908 is therefore also considered to be the actual founding year of the Hans Soldan Foundation, as the establishment of a foundation could not yet be realized due to a lack of the necessary capital, which was a prerequisite for state approval.
In the following years the range of goods of the association increased. In 1909, for example, the association was able to supply a robe that cost 60 Reichsmarks in the department store for 32 marks. In 1910 Soldan brought out a form book with annotations that appeared at the same time as the amendment to the Code of Civil Procedure. A year later he called for a statistical office to deal with the situation of lawyers. The demand was implemented 96 years later in the form of the “Statistical Yearbook of the Legal Profession ” by the Soldan Institute for Legal Management .
Soldan personally headed the Association of German Lawyers and assumed the financial risks. The first local associations emerged in Düsseldorf, Essen, Munich, Nuremberg, Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin and other cities. Subsidiaries with decentralized warehouses ensured short delivery times. The profit provided the material basis for Soldan's plans.
The Hans Soldan Foundation
In 1929 Soldan founded the Hans Soldan Foundation and transferred the assets of the Economic Association to the amount of 100,000 Reichsmarks to this foundation. With the transformation of the “economic association” into an “independent legal person” he wanted to ensure the continued existence of the institution after his death.
In 1930 the first catalog of the Hans Soldan Foundation appeared and gradually replaced the price lists. In 1931 Soldan bought his own print shop and opened the first “Recreation Center for German Lawyers”. In the first year of the war, the “Juliushall” spa hotel in Bad Harzburg, which he had leased for this purpose, was confiscated by the National Socialists for Wehrmacht purposes. However, business went well despite the confiscation. In 1938 the foundation bought business and factory buildings in Berlin and moved its headquarters from Leipzig to the capital of the Reich. The foundation now has around 100 employees.
Hans Soldan died on August 12, 1940 at the age of 70 after a long illness. The high order backlog at that time was only reached again after the end of the war in the mid-1960s. Hans Soldan's successor was his son-in-law Fritz Trops.
The foundation after the end of the war
After the end of the war, the foundation had lost all of its assets except for 10,000 marks. The business building in the eastern part of Berlin was completely destroyed. The Hotel Juliushall was confiscated by the British, so the foundation rented a business building in Bad Harzburg, which was temporarily furnished for management, purchasing, storage, accounting and shipping. In the summer of 1951, the foundation relocated the main office to Essen. With the relocation, there was no longer any spatial separation between the administrative department and the print shop. In the following years the Soldan Foundation benefited from the West German "economic miracle".
With a dense network of sales representatives, the foundation reached almost all law firms and notaries' offices in Germany. The good business results made it possible to invest in modernizing the machines. The foundation acquired a plot of land in Essen-Bergeborbeck and built a new company building there, which was moved into in 1965. The company's headquarters are still located here today.
In 1967 the reconstruction program was completed. In the years that followed, the foundation's growth accelerated. In the period up to 1983 the range of services was expanded at all levels.
In 1969, the company invested in its own data center. In the following years, this took over the bookkeeping for lawyers and notaries as well as foreclosure or process register management with automatic assignment of filing numbers. In the same year, the foundation took up organizational advice for law firms. In 1976 Soldan entered the specialist book trade. In 1977 the foundation developed forms for the nationwide payment orders. In 1983 the Hans Soldan Foundation employed around 300 people, 12 of whom were in the field, and had branches in Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich.
Soldan Moot on Legal Professional Practice
The Soldan Moot for legal professional practice ( Soldan Moot ) at the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University of Hanover has been in existence since 2013, and is funded by the Hans Soldan Foundation . There is a national moot court - competition for students of law faculties German. A German court case is simulated using a fictitious case. The aim is to familiarize the students with the forensic work of lawyers by legally analyzing a case, assessing evidence and formulating legal opinions as a lobbyist. They should also deal with the counter-arguments and finally convince the court of their position. Each year one case is dealt with, which also provides the students with important knowledge of professional law. First of all, the participants write briefs on the basis of which they then compete against each other in oral negotiations. Quarter and semi-finals follow a preliminary round, and the winning team of the finals is awarded the Hans Soldan Prize. In addition, awards are given for the best plaintiff and defendant's brief as well as the best oral performance in the preliminary round.
| year | Winner of the Hans Soldan Prize | further finalists |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Bucerius Law School | Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University of Hanover |
| 2014 | Bucerius Law School | Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg |
| 2015 | University of Hamburg | Bucerius Law School |
| 2016 | University of Hamburg | Bucerius Law School |
| 2017 | Bucerius Law School | University of Bonn |
| 2018 | Free University of Berlin | Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University of Hanover |
| 2019 | Bucerius Law School | Ruhr-University Bochum |
Outsourcing of the commercial division
Dieter Ahlers has been a board member of the Hans Soldan Foundation since 1979. Business activities were expanded. This led to technical upheaval, more intensive customer advice and the entrepreneurial realignment of the foundation. The growth and changes in the business led Dieter Ahlers to rethink the legal form. So far it was a foundation that ran a commercial enterprise. After initially controversial discussions, the Supervisory Board mutually agreed to separate the foundation and business operations under company law. At Ahler's proposal, the Hans Soldan Foundation was converted into a non-profit foundation and business operations as a limited liability company were spun off from the foundation.
The non-profit Hans Soldan Foundation
According to its statutes, the non-profit Hans Soldan Foundation promotes the "training and further education of lawyers and notaries as well as trainee lawyers and students who aspire to the profession of lawyer, and finally of employees and trainees of lawyers and notaries". Since 1989 she has established twelve institutes for legal law at German universities nationwide . Since 1994 she has been supporting the forum for young lawyers in the DAV, which focuses on young lawyers starting their careers. In total, the foundation gave around 14 million euros for funding purposes between 1989 and 2008.
The Soldan Meetings
The Soldan Meetings, which have been held annually since 1999, deal with issues related to lawyer-oriented law studies.
The 1st Soldan Conference took place on April 30, 1999 in Hanover. The content of the law degree was discussed. The Institute for Legal and Notary Law at Bielefeld University was commissioned to take stock of the current legal orientation in the course, which took place from August 1999.
On June 16, 2000, the 2nd Soldan conference in Heidelberg ended with a request to the legislature to use the creative freedom in the examination regulations. A committee set up by the Hans Soldan Foundation should work out a definition of what is meant by lawyer-oriented training.
The 3rd Soldan conference on May 11, 2001 in Berlin showed that the stronger practical orientation of law studies is only one aspect of the reform of legal education. There was unanimous agreement about the need to gear the course content more closely to the advisory and creative work of the practicing lawyer.
The 4th Soldan conference on May 3, 2002 in Cologne was the first event on this subject after the reform law was passed by the German Bundestag. Compulsory subjects and focus areas with options should be the subject of the course in the future and the examinations in the focus areas should be held by the university.
The 5th Soldan Conference ended on April 25, 2003 in Bielefeld with the adoption of the “Bielefeld Recommendations for the Content Reorientation of Legal Studies” . The recommendations adopted should be seen as a basis for discussion for the content-related realignment of the course.
At the 6th Soldan conference on April 23, 2004 in Leipzig, it was discussed that lawyer orientation should take place in both university and trainee teacher training. A reduction in the examination catalog was also suggested. It was determined that in addition to the "external" reform of legal training, an "internal" reform should also take place.
The question of who should teach the key qualifications was discussed by the participants at the 7th Soldan conference on June 10, 2005 in Cologne. In general, the conference showed that the law faculties are in a state of upheaval due to the legal education reform and that the implementation of the reform is being pushed forward very differently from faculty to faculty in terms of type and scope.
The 8th Soldan Conference on June 29, 2006 in Hanover dealt with two general topics : Bachelor / Master or State Examination - The Effects of the Bologna Process on Legal Studies and Lawyer-Oriented Legal Training and The Legal Examination as Reflected in Examination Practice .
At the 9th Soldan conference in Berlin on June 15, 2007 , Koch demanded that the use of practitioners in teaching should not only be maintained, but also expanded. The question of which part of the course of study should be supported by the lawyer was also discussed should. The question of what will become of the reform of law studies as part of the Bologna Process, which provides for a conversion of all courses to the Bachelor and Master system, was still open at the end of the 9th Soldan Conference.
The Hans-Soldan-GmbH
The Hans-Soldan-GmbH further developed the trade and service business. The articles of association signed in July 1988 named as the purpose of the company the "trade in articles and their development for the office, organizational and professional needs of lawyers, notaries and members of other professions, as well as the performance of related services and similar transactions Operation of a graphic company and trading in publishing products ”. With the establishment of the Hans-Soldan-GmbH in July 1988 the robe tailoring was transformed into the independent subsidiary Die Robe Berufsbekleidung GmbH . To this day, the employees still make tailor-made and ready-made robes for lawyers and judges as well as clothing for pastors and acolytes.
In the 1990s, business areas such as printing were spun off into separate companies. New offers arose, such as the management consultancy AdvoConsult , which has been supporting law firms in the development of strategies, quality management and financial planning since 1996.
In order to give the company a modern infrastructure, the foundation expanded its headquarters in Essen in 1993. She introduced SAP two years later . In 1999 the company outsourced the logistics to a warehouse in Braunschweig. In 2001 a service center was set up in the Hans Soldan House in Berlin. In 2006 Soldan introduced new systems, including for customer loyalty management and the automatic recording of written orders.
Marketplace Law
In 1996 the Marktplatz-Recht.de portal went online. There, the user will find useful information about everyday life in the office. In addition to specialist information and work aids, this now also includes current news, a legal job market and an event calendar. Editorial legal links lead the visitor to other legal pages . There are also tables, forms and online calculators. Since the relaunch in 2006, legal online databases have also been available via Marktplatz-Recht.de .
Soldan specialist media / legal specialist literature
In 1998 the online bookstore SoldanBuch.de started. In addition to information on legal specialist literature, the user receives information on new publications here. The visitor will find around 30,000 titles of specialist legal literature there.
Soldan also offers databases. In the case of a legal question, the inquirer receives specific information on laws, comments and judgments.
The mail order business
The expansion of the range and the increase in trading activities required greater capacities and better logistics, and the Internet also increased the demands on networking and speed. That is why Soldan has been handling all of the warehousing, order picking and shipping of products in a logistics center in Braunschweig since 1999. The range includes around 7,000 items selected for the professional needs of lawyers and notaries. Up to 2,500 parcels are sent nationwide every day.
In October 1999 the businessman René Dreske joined the company as spokesman for the GmbH management. Karl Hans Fries remained a member of the management until his retirement at the end of 2001. In addition to increasing efficiency and quality assurance, René Dreske wanted to improve its market presence. The range of services also includes JURNAL customer information and the award of the Soldan Kanzlei Founder's Prize, which is awarded to young lawyers who have successfully founded a law firm with a convincing management and market strategy .
SoldanShop.de was opened in 2001. Soldan customers can order all items for office and law firm needs as well as for office furnishings and technology online there. The expansion of online trading did not lead to a reduction in the number of employees in the field. In 2003 the number of sales representatives was increased and their work was reorganized.
The Hans Soldan Druck GmbH
In 1993 the printing division was transformed into the wholly owned subsidiary Hans Soldan Druck GmbH . Ever since Hans Soldan GmbH was founded, investments have been made in expanding and modernizing the printing company. In 1990, a Speedmaster from Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG with a central control station was purchased to replace a nine-year-old Planeta. Cost: almost one million DM. In April 1992, another Heidelberg printing machine from the GTO series went into operation. In addition to letterheads, business cards, forms with names and office brochures, papers with individual watermarks have been produced since 2002. With the use of digital printing technology, even very small editions can be created. Finishing techniques such as embossing, punching, perforating and film lamination are also possible.
Work in the publishing business
Soldan has intensified his work in the publishing business in recent years. The Deutsche Anwaltverlag, which is operated jointly with the German Lawyers' Association and is based in Bonn, is mainly active in the area of practice-oriented works such as form and mandate books. Hans Soldan had worked as a publisher for the company Zentralbuchhandlung und Verlag Deutscher Rechtsanwälte, founded in 1909 . In 1956, the Hans Soldan Foundation, together with the German Lawyers' Association, took over the legal publishing house W. Ellinghaus & Co. GmbH, which was founded in 1948 by its Supervisory Board member Wilhelm Ellinghaus . The publisher, which was renamed Deutscher Anwaltverlag in 1983 , only pursued a few book and magazine projects. This changed in the early 1990s when the Hans Soldan GmbH and the German Lawyers Association decided to intensify the publishing business. Hans-Soldan-GmbH has held 90 percent of the shares in Deutscher Anwaltverlag since 2005 . The company now offers around 300 book titles, 11 magazines and numerous digital media.
The Soldan Institute
The activities of the Soldan Institute , founded in 2002, are geared towards supporting the entrepreneurial activities of law firms and the setting of standards in the field of professional law through empirical professional research. The independent research institute is headed by the legal scholar Matthias Kilian and is based in Cologne. In addition to the Hans Soldan Foundation, it is supported by the Federal Bar Association, the German Bar Association and the Wolters Kluwer publishing group via the non-profit sponsoring association Soldan Institute for Lawyers Management eV.
The institute publishes the Statistical Yearbook of the Legal Profession every two years and publishes research reports and so-called barometers (remuneration barometer, professional law barometer) in its own series.
Foundation purpose
The purpose of the foundation is set out in § 2 of the statutes:
- The purpose of the foundation is to promote the education and training of lawyers and notaries as well as trainee lawyers and students who aspire to the profession of lawyer, as well as of employees and trainees of lawyers and notaries.
- The purpose of the foundation is achieved in particular by granting grants to charitable institutions of the legal profession and other charitable institutions that carry out the training and further education of the group of people supported in order to realize their tax-privileged purposes
The focus for the distribution of the funding, which has been around € 13 million since the reorganization (as of 2007), is the " lawyer-related studies " at universities and other institutions that particularly endeavor to provide advanced training for young lawyers.
swell
- Hans Soldan Foundation: Twenty-one Years of the Economic Association of German Lawyers , Leipzig July 1, 1929 Self-published by the Hans Soldan Foundation
- The Hans Soldan Foundation - review and outlook for the 100th birthday of the founder , Fritz Trops, self-published.
- 75 years of Hans Soldan Foundation by Dieter Fohr ISBN 3873890089 , self-published
- In the service of lawyers , von Ute Pothmann / Anke Waldmann, Deutscher Anwaltverlag 2008
- JURNAL - Extra edition: Soldan Foundation , Hans Soldan Druck GmbH 2005
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from May 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
