QUALIFYING EXAM AS A CONDITION TO OBTAINING THE STATUS OF A LAWYER: COMPARATIVE LEGAL ASPECTS

Abstract

A lawyer is assigned a constitutional duty to provide professional legal assistance to persons. Guaranteeing a person to receive such assistance, the state sets higher qualification requirements for applicants for the status of the lawyer. When considering the nature of the legal status of the lawyer the emphasis is put on the question of the order of acquisition of such status. At the same time, we must note that one of the prerequisites for the person access to the legal profession is passing the qualification examination. The relevance of the study is shown in the fact that the qualification exam is regarded as contender’s dropout condition, who are not able to carry out professional activities on the provision of adequate legal assistance to persons appropriate in the future. The problem of determining the legal nature of the qualification exam as one of the conditions for obtaining the status of lawyer has been the subject of a number of scientists’ research. Among the scholars who have examined some aspects of this problem, one should distinguish the works of V. I. Golovanov, M. A. Kosarev, M. S. Kosenko, N. A. Kudryavtseva, R. G. Melnichenko, S. F. Safulko, M. B. Smolensky and others. At the same time, nowadays a sufficient number of controversial issues remain in this area.