Translated material
Ward senior
Lawyers elect their president
The Russian legal profession is preparing to live by new rules - by the end of today, the First All-Russian Congress of Lawyers will elect a council and president of the council of the federal chamber of lawyers. According to the new law on the legal profession, which came into force on July 1 last year, every region of Russia now has its own chamber of lawyers. And they all belong to the federal chamber. The Chamber takes care of the protection of members of the legal community, communicates on their behalf with government authorities and resolves organizational issues. The charter of the federal chamber will also be adopted by today's congress. The chamber's council will include 36 members, who, in turn, will elect a president from among themselves. According to Pavel Astakhov, a member of the Moscow City Bar Association, “the president should be not so much a good speaker and public lawyer, not so much a good business executive, but a candidate who combines all these qualities.” The chamber of each region is going to submit several candidates, so Mr. Astakhov estimates the total number of competitors at three hundred.The Congress of Lawyers is being held in Russia for the first time. Not all of them agree with the provisions of the new law, but to most of them it still seems better than the situation under which the professional community has lived since 1980. Compared to America and Europe, there are still few lawyers in Russia - only 56 thousand. In Germany alone there are twice as many of them. “But our society cannot yet afford to provide every citizen with a lawyer,” admits Mr. Astakhov. So there are unlikely to be more lawyers yet. But the number of boards may increase. For example, in Moscow there are now 15 lawyer associations. Until February 20, all Moscow lawyers will have to choose the form of their activity - whether it will be a lawyer's office, a bureau or a collegium. The existing 15 collegiums will most likely remain, but new ones may be added to them - according to the law, even two lawyers can establish a collegium. True, each of them must be a member of the chamber. The authors of the law think that this is still better than the situation that developed before 1995, when independent boards appeared in each region like mushrooms after rain.