The present text is a contribution to the understanding of the collapse of Austria; the author aims to explain the dilemmas and problems of the processes accompanying the completion and formation of the new Yugoslav state through the eyes of the legal profession, which included Dr Juro Hrašovec, the first Slovenian mayor of Celje. Methodologically, it is a playfully experimental approach to history from below and is mainly based on archival material from the Bar Association of Slovenia. The legal profession in the autumn of 1918 and immediately afterwards is of particular interest for at least two reasons. Firstly, because it forms one of the fundamental parts of the modern state – the judicial system; and secondly, because the proportion of lawyers among politicians, i.e., among decision-makers, was the highest of any professional group (not only in Austria, but in almost all Western democracies).