3. Kinds of Legal Profesion

Types of legal profession in England and Wales

Solicitors - They are found in every town, where they deal with all the day-to-day work of preparing legal documents for buying and selling houses, making wills, etc. Solicitors prepare cases for barristers to present in the higher courts and may represent their client in a Magistrates’ court. In a civil action solicitors have a right to speak in the County Court, when the case is one of divorce or recovering some debts, and they deal with petty crimes and some matrimonial matters in Magistrates Courts, the lowest Courts.

Barristers - who defend or prosecute in the higher courts. Although solicitors and barristers work together on cases, barristers specialize in presenting clients in court and the training and career structures for the two types of lawyers are quite separate. In court, barristers wear wigs and gowns in keeping with extreme formality of the proceedings. The barristers of the highest level have the title QC (Queen’s Counsel). A barrister’s main work is to provide representation in the courts, where they are referred to as counsel, to draft documents associated with court procedure, and give opinions, that is specialist advise. They are normally instructed by solicitors or other recognised professionals on behalf of lay clients. A barrister must be capable of prosecuting in a criminal case one day, and defending an accused person the next, or of preparing the pleadings and taking the case for a plaintiff in a civil action one day, and doing the same for a defendant the next. As the law has became more complex, barristers increasingly specialise in particular areas, such as personal injury, crime, family or commercial law. Barristers are experts in the interpretation of the law. They are called in to advise on really difficult points.

Judges - they are barristers who have been elevated to the bench itself, a name derived from the part of the Court where they sit. The professional judges, ‘High Court Judges’, deal with the most serious crimes. They are paid salaries by the state. The judge decides the interpretation of the law. After all the evidence has been given the judge summarizes the case, both law and facts, for the jury. This is called his summing up.

Judges cannot be removed from office on account of political considerations — the independence of the judiciary is, at least theoretically guaranteed.

There are following types of judges in England and Wales: Justices of the Supreme Court , Lord Justice of Appeal, High Court Judges , Circuit Judges , Recorders

Jury - A jury consists of twelve people (jurors), who are ordinary people chosen at random from the Electoral Register (the list of people who can vote in elections). The jury listen to the evidence given in court in certain criminal cases and decide whether the defendant is guilty or innocent. If a person is found guilty, the punishment is passed by the presiding judge. Its verdict must be unanimous (it is essentially one of «guilty» or «not guilty») and, in the event of failure to reach agreement, the case is retried before another jury. Only 6 - 7% of jury decisions are by a majority verdict. Juries are rarely used in civil cases.

Magistrates - who judge cases in lower courts. They are usually unpaid and have no formal legal qualifications, but they are respectable people who are given some training. They are ordinary citizens who are selected not because they have any legal training but because they have ‘sound common sense’ and understanding of their fellow human beings. They give up their time voluntarily.

Coroners - Coroners have medical or legal training (or both), and inquire into violent or unnatural death.

Clerks of the court - Clerks look after administrative and legal matters in the courtroom.

Attorney-General and Director of Public Prosecutions - The Attorney-General is the Government’s chief Law Officer and his deputy is the Solicitor-General. The Attorney-General is a member of Government; he is not actually a member of the Cabinet itself. The Attorney-General has the power to stop proceedings for any indictable offence. He has certain administrative functions of which the most important is the control of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Director undertakes about 7,000 prosecutions a year himself and is constantly required to give advice to the police, the main prosecuting agencies, as well as to central government departments and magistrates clerks.

Lord Chief Justice - The Lord Chief Justice (LCJ) holds the senior judicial office in the country. He presides over the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court and the criminal division of the Court of Appeal. He has supervisory and procedural duties relating to the administration of justice generally.

Types of legal profession in the USA

Judges - Judges in the USA initially come to the bench from other lines of legal work and after a substantial number of years of professional experience. A lawyer can initially become a judge on the highest court, the lowest court, or any court between. In other words, a lawyer who has never been a judge can become a judge on a court of last resort or an intermediate appellate court or a trial court, in either a state or the federal system. Lawyers who come on the bench at the trial or intermediate appellate levels have no real promise of moving to a higher court. Federal magistrate judges perform two kinds of functions. First, they hold hearings on variety of motions, such as motions seeking to control lawyers’ conduct of discovery in civil cases, and make recommendations to the district judge as to the disposition. Magistrate judges also hold evidentiary hearing on prisoner’s petitions challenging the legality of their convictions, and they recommend factual findings to the judge. Second, magistrate judges are authorized to conduct trials in civil cases and in criminal misdemeanor cases if the parties consent. In other words, the parties can choose to go to trial before a magistrate judge instead of a district judge. If the parties exercise this opinion, the magistrate judge is empowered to decide the case and enter final judgment in the name of the district court.

The Attorney General - The federal system is the best known example of executive nomination with legislative confirmation. The Attorney General of the United States and the Department of Justice, which he heads, are key executive branch participants in the selection process, along with the White House staff. In selecting Supreme Court nominees, the President has even more leeway, but he still must take into account sentiment in the Senate, as that body has in effect a veto over the nomination.

Law Clerks - In the common-law tradition and in American practice prior to the twentieth century, judges functioned without assistance in judicial decision making. There has always been a clerk of the court, a court employee who handles the papers and maintains case files. Judges also have long had secretarial help for typing and other clerical chores.

A law clerk is usually a recent law school graduate. The work of law clerks in trial courts differ somewhat from that of law clerks in appellate courts. Appellate clerks spend much time in editing, and sometimes drafting, opinions that their judges are assigned to prepare for the court. Trial clerks also draft some memoranda and short opinions, but in addition they assist the judge with motions of all sorts and in pretrial conferences and hearings. They often deal with parties’ lawyers to assist the judge in managing his docket. To a considerable extent these different duties reflect the difference between the work of a trial court and that of appellate court.

Staff attorneys - The distinction between staff attorneys and law clerks in that the latter work for an individual judge in that judge’s chambers; the relationship is direct and personal, with the clerk responsible to no one except that judge. Central staff attorneys, on the other hand, work for the court as a whole. Central staff in appellate courts writes memoranda on cases for the use of the judges to whom those cases are assigned. In some courts they also draft proposed dispositions, usually short opinions in cases with issues that are not especially difficult or novel. Central staff attorneys often do the screening, a process of identifying those appeals that can appropriately be decided through truncated processes, usually involving the elimination of oral argument.

Adjuncts - In many state trail courts there are adjuncts variously entitled commissioners, referees, and part-time judges. In some state appellate courts there are commissioners who assist the court much as staff attorneys do.

Clerks of the court - Every court, whether trial or appellate, state or federal, has a clerk of the court who has a staff. The clerk’s office is the place where lawyers and litigants file pleadings, motions, and other papers in the cases brought in the court. The clerk’s office keeps a file on each case and maintains the docket book and the official record of the court’s actions in all of its cases. All matters that come before the judges flow first through the clerk’s office.

Judicial educator- The newest type of administrative official, now found in every state judicial system, is the state judicial educator. This officer, who usually works under the direction of the state chief justice or a judicial council of some sort, is responsible for planning and carrying out programs of continuing education for the state’s judges and other court personnel.

Administrative and supporting personnel - In addition to all of these administrative and supporting personnel, there are battalions of others who help keep the courts running. These include bailiffs, computer operators, court stenographers, typists, guards, and building maintenance staffs.

American Bar Association - In the United States admission to the practice of law is the matter of state concern. There is no such thing as ‘the American bar’ in any official or formal sense. That expression is used loosely to refer to all the lawyers in the United States, each of whom has been state-licensed. There is no national or federal authority to admit persons to the legal profession. The entity known as the American Bar Association is a private, voluntary, nationwide organization of some 370,000 lawyers from all states; it is the largest organization of lawyers in the country, although there are many other private bar associations, often based on areas of legal specialization.

Types of Legal Profession in Ukraine

One of the most popular professions among the young people of our country is the profession of a lawyer. It is very interesting and important. Our country is creating a law-governed state, and lawyers play a very significant role in this process. They are necessary for regulating social relations in the state.

In Ukraine, training lawyers is the task of the law establishments such as Law Academies, Law Institutes, and law faculties of several higher institutions. Graduates of different law schools can work at the Bar, in the organs of the Prosecutor’s Office, in different courts, in notary offices, in legal advice offices, in organs of tax inspection, militia, as well as in different firms, companies, banks, enterprises, etc. They can work as advocates, judges, notaries, investigators, prosecutors, legal advisors, inspectors, customs officers, traffic officers, and other workers of law enforcement agencies.

Legal profession combines legal practitioners and scholars, members of the judiciary, and the Bar, prosecutors, defense lawyers, notaries, jurists and counsels (legal advisors of private, public, state and municipal enterprises, establishments and organizations) etc.

The Academy of Legal Sciences was established in 1993. It is a national scientific organization, which carries out the fundamental researches and coordinates, organizes and fulfils works in the field of state and law. The academicians and known scientists are the members of the Academy. There are also some other professional unions of lawyers in Ukraine.

The Union of Lawyers of Ukraine carries out lawmaking, scientific, methodological, educational and informative activities with the aim of promoting lawyers of Ukraine in their professional and social interests, their public activities and participation in the state policy development.

The Ukrainian Bar Association unites lawyers from all spheres of legal profession with the aim of protecting their professional and other common interests, developing the legal profession, and creating a law-governed state in Ukraine.

The Union of Advocates of Ukraine is an independent and self-governed public all-Ukrainian organization. It is aimed at facilitating the role and authority of the Bar in our society and the state, the true independence and self-regulation of the Bar and developing the democratic state in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Association of Prosecutors has a purpose to protect legal rights and interests of its members who worked/work in the Prosecutor’s Office, and support the prosecutors’ positive image in Ukraine and abroad, helping to fulfill their tasks.

The Ukrainian Notarial Chamber is a public organization which supports its members in their professional activities, makes efforts to improve notary system and participates in the law-making process.

The Ukrainian branch of the European Law Students’ Association – ELSA Ukraine is comprised of students and recent graduates of the Ukrainian law education establishments who are interested in law and have demonstrated commitment to international issues.