N.Ya. Sokolov. Lawyers’ professional culture and legality

Abstract: The harmonious functioning of legal regulation mechanism, ensurance of legality and the law and order in many respect depend on a level of lawyers’ professional culture. The author pays attention to wide spreading of authorslawyers’ approaches in understanding the terms “legality” and “legal culture” and tries to overcome this misunderstanding. To eliminate disagreements in literature on law concerning the definition of legality as a principle, method, requirements and mode, it is suggested considering them as various entities rather than mutually controversial demonstration of common essence of legality. It is necessary to see both practical side in legality connected with transformation of normative and internal one connected with views, rules, morale of an individual, society and social groups including lawyers. Otherwise, legality acts as something formal and external in relation to a person and society. In this article an attempt is made to overcome available in literature disagreements which concern understanding lawyers’ legal and professional culture. According to the author professional and legal culture can be defined as caused by division of labor, a version of legal culture of society representing itself a measure of development and practical use of legal values by lawyers as a socially-professional group. The author emphasizes that legality and legal culture being rather independent social phenomena are in close relations. Establishing and ensuring law and order are an important factor for skilled lawyers. Professional lawyers are aimed at protecting individuals’ legitimate rights and interests, which organically results from the nature of a lawful state. Domination of the right, supremacy of the law, coherence of the state and an individual by means of mutual rights and duties are principles which refer to the professional and legal sphere and are the major indicators of a professional culture level. Moreover, high professional culture and strict execution of lawyers’ duties assigned to them are an important guarantee of individual rights, which imposes a special responsibility on law-enforcement and other legal bodies. In its turn, ensurance of the legality in society in many respects depends on quantity and a qualification level of a legal socially-professional staff. In this connection the author estimates this condition and also available difficulties and problems in law education and science of law as important indicators of legal culture of lawyers and all society as well. In conclusion on the basis of sociological research data the author shows how legality problems and its independence on legal culture are reflected in the lawyer’s professional consciousness.