Aboute Attorneys Under Attack on The 12 th Annual IBA Law Firm Management conference

Federal Сhamber of lawyers of the Russian Federation has announced in the August 2018: “…practicing as an attorney in Russia is quite dangerous. It is difficult to call government policy benevolent when we speak about advocacy. It seems like the government does everything to make advocacy unpopular for practicing lawyers. Cases of illegal intervention into attorney’s activity or hindrance to it count by hundreds and reached thousands per year. On the agenda – taking measures to self-defense of attorneys’ professional rights and legitimate interests of their principals, including the realization of the legal right to strike.” The reasons of such unfavorable conclusions, among the others, are:

  • lack of judicial independence and trial competitiveness, imitating nature of legal proceedings, accusatory bias, discrimination of the defense in courts, violation of the principle of publicity, lack of law enforcement predictability;

  • violations and abuses against attorneys (murders, beatings, infringement of property) due to their professional activity, including by law enforcement officials, and lack of the right reaction on the violations and abuses;

  • numerous violations of the attorney’s professional rights: infringements of attorney-client privilege, illegal searches and examinations with the main purpose to exclude an attorney from the process, illegal investigations against attorneys;

  • lack of special standards of responsibility for hindrance of attorney activity.

Counteractions against advocacy and attacks on attorneys are improving in a wide scope of methods. What are the last tendencies? How attorneys may exist and practice in such difficult and unsafe environment?

These questions was the subject of professional discussion on the session № 5 of The 12 th Annual IBA Law Firm Management conference, where the managing partner of Puchkov&Partners Denis Puchkov made the report and shared experience from personal practice .

The conference took place on December 7, 2018 in Moscow. The full program of a conference consisted of 6 sessions aboute issues faced by the legal business of the different countries of the world:

Session 1. Status of the Reform of the legal profession.

Session 2. New Products, New Destinations, New Dimensions.

Session 3. Who Will Be Our Next Generation of Partners?

Session 4. Law Firm as an Employer: Managing Reputation in the Markets for Legal Talents.

Session 5. Attorneys Under Attack: Managing the high risks of legal practice in the current legal environment.

Session 6: New Concepts of Law Firm Financial Performance: How Lawyers Will be financially sucessful in the Future.

Kate Kostromina