In modern society, poverty has been defined not only by quantitative measures of well-being but as a morally distinct category. In turn, the moral status of poverty has frequently been associated with primordial characteristics of race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion. In these moral and ascriptive respects, the social structure of poverty has been related systematically to the thrust of civil legal assistance on behalf of the poor.

Cyclically over the past century in the industrialized West, the poor have been organized into a social status with castelike features. In alternating historical periods, not only have the poor been culturally differentiated as an inherently different status group, their qualitative distinction has been institutionally constructed by practices of segregation legally sanctioned by the state. By noting the historically fluctuating phases in the construction of a modern caste of the poor, we may better understand the sociological significance of providing counseling to the poor on their civil legal problems. Modern law quite generally and civil legal assistance to the poor in some narrow but notable ways have significantly promoted the structuring of poverty into caste forms. And the caste status of poverty has shaped the role of lawyers for the poor in several important respects.

The comrades' courts of the East European socialist countries are considered by those who favor alternative means of dispute resolution to be admirable examples of informal courts in modern industrial societies. However, these courts have not been extensively investigated. This article presents the results of an intensive observational study of one kind of socialist alternative court, the Yugoslav Courts of Associated Labor, comparing them with an ideal model of informal courts and with the available data on comrades' courts in other East European socialist countries. We find that, in contrast with the latter, the Yugoslav courts are indeed workers' courts, in the sense that they are used by workers—over 90% of their cases are brought by individual workers. On the other hand, they are not workers' courts in the sense of being controlled by workers—they are instead dominated by legal professionals. We conclude that these Yugoslav courts are attractive to individual workers precisely because they are not informal, social courts, but rather are independent legal agencies from which workers may receive unprejudiced decisions and substantial remedies.