Transformation of the Institute of advocacy and processes of legal professionalization in post-Soviet Russia

Abstract

The article analyzes from the perspective of the theory of juridical field the process of institutional professionalization of advocates in post-Soviet Russia. The author makes a conclusion that the emergence of new institutional and individual actors of the juridical field fascilitated the formation of various interests and approaches to delivery of juridical services. In spite of the formation in the early 2000s of a single organizational structure of the advocates’ community this community remains divided and stratified. In some aspects of their activities the advocates try to defend their professional autonomy. Nevertheless, in the situation of internal conflicts the Soviet-style model of interaction between the Bar and the state is actualized. Juridical professionalization of organizations defending the rights of vulnerable groups is regarded as structured by unequal access to material and symbolic resources. Special attention is devoted by the author to formation in such organizations of an alternative form of professionalization of human rights lawyers with the potential to change their juridical habitus and create a specific identity that combines elements of human rights activism and legal professionalism.