THE PROFESSION OF A LAWYER Профессия юриста One of the most popular professions among the young people of our country is the profession of a lawyer. In their opinion (and that is exactly so) the legal profession is very interesting, diverse and quite necessary for regulation of social relations in the state. A graduate from the law faculty or law institute may choose his place of work and occupation from a number of possible ones. He can be either a barrister (attorney, counsel for the defence) at the Bar or a judge at the Law Court. He can be a prosecutor or a prosecutor's assistant at the Prosecutor's Office. He can also be a notary at the notary office or a legal adviser at an enterprise or legal advice office. He can be a state arbitrator at the state arbitration … or sometimes an investigator at the Prosecutor's Office or in the organs of the militia. A lawyer should be a perfect expert in laws and their proper usage. Since the job of a lawyer may involve any kind of human activity, he may deal with different types of people. Therefore last but not least a lawyer should be competent in human psychology and human understanding. So it is clear that the profession of a lawyer may give a specialist a lot of opportunities to use his professional and personal competence and therefore he must administer justice only for the sake of "truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth". It must be interesting to note the peculiarities of the legal profession in England. One may find there two separate professions - solicitors and barristers. The solicitor is probably the more ancient profession descending with notaries and attorneys on Elizabethan's times and even earlier. There is no hard and fast line between the work of the solicitor and the work of a barrister. In general, however, it is possible to say that solicitors can undertake legal business for lay clients and represent them in the lower courts, while barristers can advise on legal problems through solicitors and conduct legal proceedings in the higher courts. The party must have both a solicitor and a barrister and it is the solicitor who should instruct the barrister on his client's behalf in his "brief" to the barrister. Only on the introduction of the solicitor can a client employ a barrister (counsel A barrister must reach the proper educational standard and pass special examinations at the Council of Legal Education. Judges are not themselves the separate profession. They are usually former barristers from the ranks of the Bar. The judge should decide the interpretation of the law. But only the Jury can decide all questions of fact in serious criminal and civil cases. Members of the jury are usually laymen. In England a jury can return only one of two verdicts: "guilty" or "not guilty". The counsel for the prosecution is an indispensable and integral part of the English trial as well. He should prove the guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable doubt. That is a short and quite incomplete account of the peculiarities of the legal profession in England. Can you compare its specific features here in this country and in England? You can discuss the problem in detail at your seminars of "State and Law of Foreign Countries".