Types of Legal Professions in Russia and Great Britain.

Types of Legal Professions in Russia and Great Britain.

       Speaking about types of legal professions in Russia we should say that the most popular of them is the profession of a lawyer. Lawyers in private practice work mostly within bars – self-managed cooperative organizations. There are about nineteen thousand advocates in more than one hundred bars. The highest body of advocates’ self- management is the general meeting of a bar. The presidium headed by the chairperson is the executive board of each bar. The presidium is elected by the general meeting for a term of three years.

      Bars of advocates are formed in accordance with territorial subdivisions – in the cities, regions, republic or autonomous entities.

      There are now more and more American- type law firms in Russia functioning separately from bars of advocates and especially involved in representing private businesses. Many lawyers are employed by the law offices of enterprises, ministries and agencies as in-house counsel ( jurisconsult).

      Of course, many in the legal profession teach or do academic research work. In Russia there are forty institutions of higher law education. There are also separate research centers in law, the most prominent of which is the Institute of State  and Law under the Academy of Sciences of Russia.

     In Great Britain there also many legal professions. The most strong feature of the English legal profession is its bifurcation into two separate sub- professions, barristers and solicitors. This bifurcation has a number of significant impacts upon the judicial system. It is the main reason for the separation between civil and criminal courts.

Solicitors deal with all day-to-day work of preparing legal documents for buying and selling trading houses, making wills, etc. Barristers specialize in representing clients in court. The training and career structures for the two types of lawyer are quite separate.

In court, barristers wear wigs and owns. The highest level of barristers have the title “QC” ( Queen’s Counsel). To qualify as a solicitor, a young man or a woman joins a solicitor as a “clerk”. At the same time he studies part time for the “Law Society” exams when you have passed the exams, you can practice, that is to start your own business.

Barristers are experts in the interpretation of the Law. To qualify as a barrister you have to make examinations of the Bar Council. But there is no separate training for judges.

Magistrates judge cases in the lower courts. Coroners have medical or legal training, and inquire into violent or unnatural deaths. A jury consists of twelve people who are chosen at random from the Electoral Register.

The main administrators of federal law enforcement are attorneys, appointed by the  president with the advice and consent of the Senate. US attorneys have considerable discretion, which makes them powerful political figures in the community.