📋 Tender Overview
The Federal Chamber of Lawyers is considering a draft standard for the quality of legal consulting services. The news was announced at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum during the session “Professional Risks of Lawyers.” The standards will also protect lawyers from accusations of unprofessionalism. Because there will be an opportunity to provide a reasoned explanation when the lawyer did everything correctly.
The moderator of the session, President of the Federal Chamber of Lawyers of the Russian Federation, Svetlana Volodina, noted that it is very important for the legal community not only to acknowledge the presence of professional risks, but also to discuss how to minimize these risks. She identified three groups of reasons for the emergence of risks: lack of professionalism of the participants in the process, including the lawyer; abuse of rights; actions that go beyond the law. The President of the FPA RF emphasized that the legal community needs to understand how to act depending on which reason causes risks.
Vice President of the Federal Chamber of Lawyers of the Russian Federation Oleg Baulin focused on the causes of professional risks for lawyers, which include, in particular: the activities of a lawyer who is not sufficiently prepared for a court hearing; organizational work of a lawyer in connection with the conclusion of an agreement on the provision of legal assistance. There are also risks of interaction with a client who wants certain legal consequences to occur and for whom it does not matter in what ways they can be achieved. In addition, Oleg Baulin identified a systemic problem, the essence of which is that often the emergence of professional risks and the formation of conditions for their occurrence is associated with the uncertainty of the concept of legal assistance.
According to the observations of Konstantin Rivkin, a lawyer at the Moscow Bar Association "Kaganer and Partners", practice shows that interactions between clients and their defenders are not always successful. The latter often have various problems. Thus, one of the sources of risks for lawyers is their clients.
In this regard, the speaker believes, it is important to pay attention to the psychological characteristics of relationships with clients in criminal cases, the risks of lawyers when entering a case, situations with non-payment of the fee specified in the agreement, conflicts with the client regarding his instructions or position on the case.
The speech presented statistics from the Moscow Bar Association, which show that of the 1,800 complaints received in 2022, 1,500 were complaints from clients. 9/10 of these complaints were recognized by disciplinary bodies as unfounded, disciplinary proceedings were not initiated on them, and in the cases initiated, in most cases, the Qualification Commission and the Council of the Chamber recognized the actions of lawyers as lawful.
The reasons for the risky behavior of clients for lawyers, according to the speaker, are often related to the fact that the latter, when initiating a criminal case, experience stress, want to get out of the current situation, including by illegal means, are under the influence of law enforcement agencies, and also in a difficult situation their negative feelings are aggravated. personality qualities.
Managing partner of the Pepeliaev Group Law Firm Sergey Pepeliaev reported that on June 17, the FPA Council submitted to the Commission of the FPA Council on Ethics and Standards a draft standard for the quality of legal consulting services developed by Pepeliaev Group. The speaker recalled the legal positions of the Supreme Court of Russia: if the quality is not specifically defined by the contract, the result of the work must meet the usually imposed requirements. The answer to the question of what the usually imposed requirements are can and should be given by lawyers. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation noted that the client pays for legal consulting services, counting on their usefulness. The benefit is revealed through the goal pursued by the customer. However, the desired result is not always achievable, and the consultant shares with the client the risk of not receiving this result. Therefore, a legal consultant must act with the degree of care and professionalism with which any reasonable consultant would act. The concept of a reasonable consultant, believes Sergey Pepeliaev, should also be included in the standard. Sergey Pepeliaev noted that the development of standards should be carried out promptly due to the emergence of requests for external regulation of advocacy.
Member of the Commission of the Council of the FPA RF for the protection of the rights of lawyers Evgeniy Tonkov considers it most important not to abandon the idea of ????promoting the rule on obstructing the practice of law. Secondly, we must consistently strive to bring such persistent violators of lawyers’ rights to justice. “We have them by name, they are in every ward,” he said of these violators. And the third, derived from the second, is to create a register of violators of the rights of lawyers; this register may be perceived ambiguously, however, according to Evgeniy Tonkov, such a register is necessary. It may include, for example, law enforcement officers who do not allow lawyers to see detainees.
The speaker emphasized that the Commissions for the Protection of the Rights of Lawyers are consistently working to ensure that violators of the rights of lawyers are held accountable, and noted that at present there is a clear tendency to consolidate the work of regional commissions. Evgeny Tonkov reported that the Commission for the Protection of the Rights of Lawyers of the Leningrad Region Bar Association processes several requests by telephone every week.
