This article examines the history of the professional law journal Rote Robe during the first phase of its publication, 1970–1976. The journal functioned as an intermediary between the movements arising from ‘1968’ and the legal profession. It continued to play this role when the Communist League of West Germany (KBW)increasingly brought its ideological positions to bear on the contents of the journal. Transcending the divides in the political spectrum of the left, it served as a professional forum covering developments in the politics of criminal justice, the prosecution of political activists, and repression against defence lawyers in politically charged criminal proceedings, including the so-called Berufsverbote under the 1972 Anti-Radical Decree. The journal thus made a major contributionto the analysis of legal developments in 1970s West Germany.