Law Journal of the National Academy of Internal Affairs

The article states that legal activity is one of the most common and prestigious types of professional activity. Its development plays an important role in the development of democratic and legal institutions of the modern Ukrainian state. The author analyzes the texts of legal acts devoted to the regulation of the principles of professional legal activity in Ukraine. Such rules are fixed, basically, at the level of corporate or by-laws. They represent a set of rules, procedures, proposed by the relevant lawmaking subject for application in various spheres of legal activity. Such acts include, in particular, the Rules of professional ethics of notaries, Code of professional ethics and behavior of prosecutors, Rules of law ethics, Code of judicial ethics, Standards of activity of legal clinics of Ukraine, etc. These documents differ in scope, level of normative detail, subjects of the publication. The texts of these documents are devoted to separate issues of organization of activities, ethical and moral norms of lawyers’ behavior. Qualification requirements, professional skills, a list of official duties and powers, grounds for prosecution are not provided. The results of the comparison of these documents indicate the absence of a normative definition of the concept of "principle of activity". There is no unified approach to the recognition of international and national, general and special principles (principles) of the activities of lawyers. This is due to corporate autonomy, self-government of the legal profession and non-interference of the state in the sphere of moral regulation. It is noted that the activity of a lawyer is important and is related to the protection of human rights and freedoms, the representation of the interests of man and the state, law-education, the formation of fundamental ideas of law and order. The lack of common standards and principles of operation leads to problems in the selection of candidates for a lawyer. Also questioned is the level of qualification and personal qualities of the selected specialists. The necessity of further theoretical and practical developments with the aim of improving the legal profession is emphasized.