We study how law treats people in vulnerable positions and how these people can make use of law. We are also interested in how the judicial system views individuals in relations to their context and to societal structures. The possibility to make use of one’s right can be obstructed or aggravated in a vulnerable situation, as a child or youth or old, disabled, poor or homeless person. Our research focuses on how two fundamental parts of law, the social welfare system and the criminal justice system, interact with vulnerable individuals. This investigation also includes the question how the judiciary can pay attention to and manage vulnerability in general. Our research also focuses on the interaction between the legal tradition of looking at an individual apart from his or her surroundings and the actual practice in which information including the social surroundings affects the individual case. The theoretical benchmark is that the individual should be seen as part of a context and not as an isolated unit.