On amendments to the Advocate’s Code of Professional Ethics

The article “On amendments to the Advocate’s Code of Professional Ethics” by Yury Pilipenko, Managing Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", was published in No. 1/2013 of the “Law and Right” scientific magazine.

Annotation: The material is dedicated to the most widely discussed suggestions of amendments to the Advocate’s Code of Professional Ethics. In particular, the possibility of bringing advocates to disciplinary liability for their deeds outside the framework of their professional activity is considered, the necessity to establish the Ethics Committee of the Federal Chamber of Advocates is explained, the expansion of the disciplinary liability measures regarding the advocates is justified.

Key words and phrases of the article: Advocate’s Code of Professional Ethics, subject of disciplinary proceedings, professional duties of an advocate, Ethics Committee, conflict of interests, authority of the Bar, disciplinary liability measures.

The Advocate’s Code of Professional Ethics (hereinafter – the Code) will turn ten years old in January of 2013. The ten years of its application show that that act, together with the federal Law “On the advocates’ activity and the Bar of the Russian Federation” No. 63-FZ dated May 31 of 2002 (hereinafter – the Bar Law) has been of a huge importance in the structuring of the normative regulation of the Russian advocates’ activity. The Code has become a significant waystone on the road of bringing the existence and operation of the Bar corporation in line with the modern realities of civil society and market economy. It has greatly influenced the forming of the corporate autodetermination and self-awareness. Also, the Code has reaffirmed (and that means – preserved) and strengthened the all0time traditional rules of professional ethics, the non-observance of which makes the very membership of the Bar unthinkable. Finally, the document fulfils the crucial role of the set of rules, which regulate the disciplinary procedure involving the advocates. However, being as it is a regulative and codified (even if not in the legislative sense) act tasked with the objective to almost exhaustively regulate a certain sphere of social relations, the Code is not without certain drawbacks…

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