JAX-RS / Jersey Implementation of a SOAP consumer / producer. This lets you annotate your methods with application/soap+xml for soap 1.2 or text/xml for soap 1.1 and use it just like any other media type. Original idea from http://aruld.info/soap-over-res

AbstractSoapProvider

package com.mao.jaxb.util;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.io.OutputStream;
import java.lang.annotation.Annotation;
import java.lang.reflect.Type;
import javax.ws.rs.WebApplicationException;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MultivaluedMap;
import javax.ws.rs.ext.MessageBodyReader;
import javax.ws.rs.ext.MessageBodyWriter;
import javax.xml.soap.MessageFactory;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPException;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPMessage;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPPart;
import javax.xml.transform.stream.StreamSource;
import org.apache.commons.lang.exception.ExceptionUtils;

/**
 * Base class for read/write operations for SOAP messages when marshalling/unmarshalling XML
 *
 * @author moliver
 * @since 7/21/11 11:33 AM
 */
public abstract class AbstractSoapProvider implements MessageBodyWriter<SOAPMessage>, MessageBodyReader<SOAPMessage>
{

    @Override
    public boolean isWriteable( Class<?> aClass, Type type, Annotation[] annotations, MediaType mediaType )
    {
        return SOAPMessage.class.isAssignableFrom( aClass );
    }

    @Override
    public long getSize( SOAPMessage soapMessage, Class<?> aClass, Type type, Annotation[] annotations, MediaType mediaType )
    {
        return -1;
    }

    @Override
    public void writeTo( SOAPMessage soapMessage, Class<?> aClass, Type type, Annotation[] annotations, MediaType mediaType, MultivaluedMap<String, Object> stringObjectMultivaluedMap, OutputStream outputStream ) throws IOException, WebApplicationException
    {
        try
        {
            soapMessage.writeTo( outputStream );
        }
        catch( SOAPException e )
        {
            ExceptionUtils.getFullStackTrace( e );
        }
    }

    @Override
    public boolean isReadable( Class<?> aClass, Type type, Annotation[] annotations, MediaType mediaType )
    {
        return aClass.isAssignableFrom( SOAPMessage.class );
    }

    protected SOAPMessage modifyMessage( String soapProtocol, InputStream inputStream ) throws SOAPException
    {
        MessageFactory messageFactory = MessageFactory.newInstance( soapProtocol );
        StreamSource messageSource = new StreamSource( inputStream );
        SOAPMessage message = messageFactory.createMessage();
        SOAPPart soapPart = message.getSOAPPart();
        soapPart.setContent( messageSource );
        message.saveChanges();
        return message;
    }
}

Soap11Provider

package com.mao.jaxb.util;

import javax.ws.rs.Consumes;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
import javax.ws.rs.WebApplicationException;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MultivaluedMap;
import javax.ws.rs.ext.Provider;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPConstants;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPException;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPMessage;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.lang.annotation.Annotation;
import java.lang.reflect.Type;

/**
 * Provides an implementation for {@link AbstractSoapProvider} that allows conversion of {@link java.io.InputStream} of {@link javax.xml.soap.SOAPMessage} with {@link javax.xml.soap.SOAPConstants#SOAP_1_1_PROTOCOL}
 *
 * @author moliver
 * @since 7/21/11 11:39 AM
 */
@Provider
@Consumes( "text/xml" )
@Produces( "text/xml" )
public class Soap11Provider extends AbstractSoapProvider
{
    @Override
    public SOAPMessage readFrom( Class<SOAPMessage> type, Type genericType, Annotation[] annotations, MediaType mediaType, MultivaluedMap<String, String> httpHeaders, InputStream entityStream ) throws IOException, WebApplicationException
    {
        try
        {
            return modifyMessage( SOAPConstants.SOAP_1_1_PROTOCOL, entityStream );
        }
        catch( SOAPException e )
        {
            throw new IOException( e );
        }
    }
}

Soap12Provider

package com.mao.jaxb.util;

import javax.ws.rs.Consumes;
import javax.ws.rs.Produces;
import javax.ws.rs.WebApplicationException;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MediaType;
import javax.ws.rs.core.MultivaluedMap;
import javax.ws.rs.ext.Provider;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPConstants;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPException;
import javax.xml.soap.SOAPMessage;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.lang.annotation.Annotation;
import java.lang.reflect.Type;

/**
 * Provides an implementation for {@link AbstractSoapProvider} that allows conversion of {@link java.io.InputStream} of {@link javax.xml.soap.SOAPMessage} with {@link javax.xml.soap.SOAPConstants#SOAP_1_2_PROTOCOL}
 *
 * @author moliver
 * @since 7/21/11 11:39 AM
 */
@Provider
@Consumes( "application/soap+xml" )
@Produces( "application/soap+xml" )
public class Soap12Provider extends AbstractSoapProvider
{
    @Override
    public SOAPMessage readFrom( Class<SOAPMessage> type, Type genericType, Annotation[] annotations, MediaType mediaType, MultivaluedMap<String, String> httpHeaders, InputStream entityStream ) throws IOException, WebApplicationException
    {
        try
        {
            return modifyMessage( SOAPConstants.SOAP_1_2_PROTOCOL, entityStream );
        }
        catch( SOAPException e )
        {
            throw new IOException( e );
        }
    }

}

I've actually replaced axis in my applications by using this. I greatly prefer JAXB / Jersey/JAX-RS even for my SOAP communications.