The Ball of Legal Professionals is one of the most traditional events of the Viennese ball season and has been held for more than 200 years. Its roots reach back to the period before the Congress of Vienna, when Viennese society gathered for splendid celebrations in the imperial rooms. Emperor Joseph II revolutionised the ball tradition when, in November 1766, he opened the balls previously reserved for the nobility to the public. This is how balls for the middle classes became established, mostly organized by the various guilds and professional groups – among them the ball of the legal profession.
A newspaper article from 1812 reveals that the Ball of Legal Professionals was not being held for the first time back then, but once again, which proves that it is undoubtedly one of the oldest balls still held to this day. The Ball of Legal Professionals was an established name on the ball scene even before the era of the great waltz kings, since members of the Strauss dynasty composed more than 30 dedication pieces for the ball and its changing organizers alone. For example the “Juristenball-Tänze”, a waltz by Johann Strauss the Younger (op. 177), premiered at the ball on 14 January 1856 in the Sofienbad-Saal, and the “Juristenball-Polka”, a fast polka, also by Johann Strauss the Younger (op. 280), premiered at the ball on 18 January 1864, once again in the Sofienbad-Saal.
Since its founding in 1948 as the “Wiener Konzipientenverband”, the Ball of Legal Professionals has been organized by today’s Juristenverband. At that time the honorary patronage was assumed by the Rector of the University of Vienna, His Magnificence Univ.-Prof. Dr. Ludwig Adamovich, later President of the Constitutional Court, as was his son of the same name after him. In the following years, from 1959 onwards, the ball once again developed into an international meeting point at the Vienna Hofburg (as it had already been between the two world wars). For many years, the European Presidents’ Conference – Vienna Bar Talks and the International Union of Notaries (UINL) have scheduled their gatherings around the date of the Ball of Legal Professionals, which traditionally takes place on the last Saturday of Carnival.
To this day, the ball unites legal tradition with Viennese ball culture: representatives of the judiciary, the legal profession and academia celebrate together with distinguished guests from Austria and abroad in the halls of the Hofburg – a social highlight of the ball season.