Managing Partner of the Law Firm "YUST" spoke about the rules to be followed when admitting lawyers to advocacy

On November 29-30, the IBA Conference “Managing a law firm” was held. The Conference was organized by the IBA Committee on managing a legal firm and the European Forum of IBA jointly with LegalStdies.RU.

As it is known, new advocacy laws have taken effect in Belarus and Ukraine, and the Ministry of Justice of Russia is planning to elaborate a concept of regulation of the sphere of qualified legal assistance. If the draft law on said system is adopted, the Law on Advocate’s Activity and Advocacy will also be changed.

Yury Pilipenko, Managing Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", First Vice-President of the Federal Chamber of Advocates, is convinced that within ten years all practicing lawyers will be incorporated.

He said: “Within the Council of the FCA there is a growing conviction that the lack of unity of the profession cannot be further tolerated. Neither can the absence of professional and ethical standards for free-lance lawyers, of any control whatsoever over their activities. There must be a single advocate’s profession and a single advocate’s corporation. It would be an honor to accept some of the free-lance lawyers into advocacy”. Y.Pilipenko believes that non-advocate lawyers should be admitted to the corporation without exams (conditioned by the higher legal education diploma, 3 to 5 years of professional experience and the recommendation of 2 to 3 members of the respective region’s chamber of advocates).

However, Y.Pilipenko expressed his concern that new regulation of the profession will be stricter, and that state control over the advocacy’s activities will grow stronger.

He believes that self-regulation of the corporation is no less important than state regulation. In connection with the discussion, which goes on within the advocates’ community around certain changes and amendments to the Advocate’s Code of Professional Ethics, the Managing Partner of the Firm stressed that “advocacy should be harsh on itself, and certain basic moral and ethical principles of the profession must be observed”.

For more details see the site of the “Novaya Advokatskaya Gazeta (New Advocate’s Newspaper)”.