Experts believe it is objectively necessary to introduce the unified qualification exam for lawyers in Russia

Tatiana Starikova, Advocate at the Firm, observed during the training organized for the Russian students at the M.Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU): “Foreign experience proves that internship and the additional exam after it are mandatory for a specialist and just as important for establishing uniform legal practice and providing high quality professional services as the receiving of special education”. The training was held on November 9 till November 12, 2011.

For the first time in Russia, Professional Responsibility and Ethics in the Global Legal Market, a four-day training dedicated to the issues of professional responsibilities of the lawyers and legal ethics, was held. Leading specialists from Russia and the USA acted as teachers. They spoke on the most advanced methods of attracting clients and preventing conflicts of interests with the account of the current ethical norms. Special attention was given to the issues of corporate social responsibility.

Gayane Davivyan, Associate Professor of the Chair of State and Law History of the Faculty of Law of the MSU, Blake Baley, Advocate, Professor of the Pericles American Business and Legal Education, and Tatiana Starikova, Advocate, together with the students, discussed concrete examples from the practice of settlement of family, labour and other disputes during the final training day.

The following cases provoked the audience’s vivid interest:

• When the lawyers of the opposing party supported presenting falsified documents to the court;
• When a court was insulted by the behavior of a representative of a party;
• When a judge placed a photograph on his social network page, which depicted his flippant behavior during a private party, and got fired for that.

When the training was over, its participants thanked the organizers and teachers for the unique possibility to discuss the most common ethical problems and to jointly attempt to understand the criteria to be used at solving them.