THE LEGAL STATUS OF A LAWYER IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA: COMPARATIVE-LEGAL ANALYSIS

Corporations of attorneys-at-law (in Russian this term is a synonym to “advocate” and similar to “lawyer”; it means a legal professional who passed qualification exam and obtained special status of a lawyer) in the Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea passed complicated historical way and now have many common and even universal features, though circumstances of their forming were completely different. In both Russia and Korea lawyers are members of one of the most significant civil society institutions, which protect rights of their citizens, seeking legal advice or receiving such advice by other means (for example, when a lawyer was designated by investigator in the Russian Federation). Attorneys-at-law face challenges in their qualification and practical experience. Candidates for the status must pass a special test (the qualification exam), but there are some exceptions. One of the important differences is Korean law on the bar and lawyer activities regulated by the Russian legislation. If in Russia every candidate for lawyer's status must pass qualification exam without any exceptions in terms of experience and previous employment, in the Republic of Korea former prosecutors and judges have privileged position and are exempted from the examination as appropriate level of their qualification is presumed. At the same time, in the Russian Federation a candidate for lawyer's status is a priori jurist what means that he must have higher education in the field of law, while in the Republic of Korea access to the attorneys’ corporation in open to everyone regardless of the level and profile of education. However, non-jurist candidates must pass a bar exam. This article provides a comparativelegal analysis of the development and modern regulation of the legal status of a lawyer in the legislation of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Korea, examines both the differences of the legislation of the named countries, as well as common features. Besides this study is one of the first in the Russian legal science with reference to the Korean bar.