Schepanskiy, I.S. On the necessity and directions for the development of professional standards in the sphere of law

Abstract: This article concerns brief history of the attempts of development of professional legal standards in Russia in early XXI century, as well as the possible solutions of the problem for the near future. The author studies various types of professional lawyer activities, including scientific work and teaching, professional advocates, notaries and judges. The research includes an attempt to adapt the normative legal basis in the sphere of legal standards, as developed by the Ministry of Labor of Russia in 2012-2013 to the traditional legal practices and the needs of the professional legal community. This study involves both general and special legal methods of studies. With the help of historical legal and formal legal approaches this work forms an idea of the development of professional activity regulation from the idea to its normative provisions. The author has analyzed the needs of the real job market, analyzing and comparing over 1500 resumes and vacancy advertisements in open sources in the Internet, and he also polled the representatives of the legal companies and lawyers, the issue was also often discussed at the hearings and working groups of the Association of Lawyers of Russia, Association of Legal Education, Board for Educational and Methodological Association on Law, Interdepartmental Commissions, but the results of these activities were not presented to the legal community. In 2012-2013 the Ministry of Labor of Russia has developed and accepted the package of documents regulating this type of activity. Based upon these documents in this article there is a first attempt to single out the types of legal activities and to define the perspectives for the development of the professional standards in each of them. In some spheres based upon the analysis the author offers to introduce specific qualification levels, providing brief analysis of working functions for each of them. The article singles out regulated directions of lawyer activities (advocates, notaries, judges) with well-organized internal structure, sphere of public administration service, scientific and pedagogical activities, and the sphere of private legal practice, including corporate lawyers and employees of specialized legal companies. For all of the said groups the author makes propositions on real perspectives and the need for the development of professional standards. The author also analyzes the difference in the approaches towards labor regulation in the Unified Job Evaluation Manual, providing for the method of directive standard description from the standpoint of official duties, and the modern professional standards using functional method.

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