TV&P prepared an advocatory request on behalf of the associate of the South Korean law firm SHIN & KIM, who has got higher education in the Russian Federation. She had studied at the law faculty of the Moscow State Lomonosov University and had received state diploma of Bachelor of Law and, subsequently, her Master of Law diploma.

In spite of these achievements, our colleague was not admitted to legal practice in South Korea. The problem was that her diploma, issued in Russia, did not contain reference to her qualification as a “lawyer”, however, used a “master of jurisprudence” term (unknown to the Korean authorities). The analysis of the Russian legislation, applicable to the higher education and taking into consideration Official Letter of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, dated September 1, 2003, No. 14-52-1018in/15 “About a person’s right to take up a post of a judge” allow us to assert that this kind of diploma nevertheless gives legal grounds to work as a lawyer.

We asked the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia to provide us with an official interpretation of the difference between two terms, namely, “a master of jurisprudence” and “a lawyer” according to the Russian profession’s classifier.

The department of state policy and legal normative regulation in the fields of education of the Ministry of Education and Science considered TV&P advocatory request and kindly commented that our colleague has the right to work as a lawyer in the view of Russian legislation applicable to the higher education: “According to the article 6 of the Federal Law “On higher and undergraduate professional education”, there are different academic degrees comprising Russian educational programs. Academic degrees of higher education established by Russian legislation are as follows: (1) higher professional education, which is confirmed by appropriation of state diploma of Bachelor after successful passing resulting attestation; (2) higher professional education, which is confirmed by appropriation of state diploma of Master or conferment a qualification of a “specialist” after successful passing resulting attestation.

Precisely, “specialist” (a lawyer) and “Master of Law” (“a master of jurisprudence”) are qualifications of the same academic degree. Therefore, it means that generally the difference between these terms (“a master of jurisprudence” and “a lawyer”) does not impose any restrictions for working as a lawyer, since specific areas of Russian jurisprudence (advocacy, public prosecutor’s activity and so on) do not actually impose additional qualification requirements.

Click here to download full text of the letter of Ministry of Education and Science of Russia No. 03-1190 dated June 5, 2008 in PDF format.

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