PASO Council meeting

On September 28, the next meeting of the Council of the Chamber of Advocates of the Samara Region was held.

The work began with the solemn taking of the oath by twenty-three candidates who successfully passed the exam to obtain the status of an advocate.

The Qualification Commission noted the high level of knowledge of the applicants. Seven of them showed the highest result in the test part of the exam, giving correct answers to 70 out of 70 questions. Three candidates were separately noted by the Commission as having shown the best results in the oral exam.

The President of the PASO Tatyana Dmitrievna Butovchenko congratulated her new colleagues on these excellent results and wished them the same bright success in their professional activities.

Among the candidates who took the oath were lawyers with work experience and former employees of the law enforcement system, graduates of the School of the Young Advocate and successors of famous advocacy dynasties. All of them came to the bar with different life and professional experiences. By becoming lawyers, everyone assumes the same obligations and responsibility to the client and the corporation. The President of PASO wished the aspiring lawyers to worthily represent the professional community to their colleagues, procedural opponents and society.

Then the Council moved on to work on the agenda.

The following were satisfied: one application for renewal, two for suspension, two for termination of status. The status of two lawyers was terminated due to the entry into force of a guilty verdict finding them guilty of committing an intentional crime.

The lawyers notified the Council about the establishment of one board and two offices.

The PASO Council satisfied one application for early removal of a disciplinary sanction.

Ten lawyers were included in the SUP system.

Four lawyers were credited with professional development hours.

PASO President T.D. Butovchenko informed the Council members about the successful participation of the PASO delegation in the interregional forum "Young Lawyer in Russia: Challenges, Opportunities and Prospects", which took place on September 14-15, 2023 in Perm. Lawyers Karnomazova A.A. and Isaev M.S., representing the Samara Chamber, took the 2nd and 3rd prize places, respectively.

The PASO Council has decided to conduct another inspection of the execution by lawyers of the Decision of the PASO Council No. 14-11-08/SP dated November 27, 2014 "On approval of the Rules of the Chamber of Advocates of the Samara Region for the execution of the Procedure for appointing lawyers as defense attorneys in criminal proceedings, approved by the decision of the Council of the Federal Chamber of Advocates of the Russian Federation dated March 15, 2019." The inspection is being conducted for the period from January 1, 2023 to March 31, 2023 and will affect lawyers operating by appointment in the Kuibyshevsky and Sovetsky districts of Samara, in the Komsomolsky district of Tolyatti, in Novokuibyshevsk, Kamyshlinsky and Klyavlinsky districts of the Samara Region.

The PASO President familiarized the Council with the Response of the Samara Regional Court to the PASO appeal regarding the arrears in payment for the work of lawyers in criminal proceedings by court appointment. Based on the results of a detailed check of the information provided by the PASO, the attention of judges of district (city) courts and justices of the peace was drawn to strict compliance with the deadlines for issuing orders on payment. In addition, chairmen of district (city) courts were instructed to monitor the activities of the staff members who are responsible for sending the said judicial acts to the financial service of the Judicial Department Office in the Samara Region.

Two disciplinary proceedings were included in the agenda of the Council meeting.

The consideration of one of them was postponed again, since the lawyer and the client were unable to obtain documents from the court confirming the circumstances to which they referred.

The second proceeding was considered on the merits. It was initiated based on the complaint of the client. The lawyer accepted the assignment to support the liquidation procedure of an LLC, received funds in advance, did not draw up a written agreement, and did not deposit the fee into the bank account of the law firm. The client made claims regarding the volume of legal assistance provided. The lawyer did not deny that he worked on the case without concluding an agreement, accepted the fee and did not record the remuneration received. The Qualification Commission found violations of the norms of the CPEA in this part. The lawyer participated in the arbitration case, took an active position, which was evident from the copy of the court decision submitted to the disciplinary proceedings. The Commission did not consider the client's claims regarding the quality of the representative's work justified. The PASO Council issued a warning to the lawyer about termination of his status.