Training of lawyers in Ukraine: problems and prospects of improvement

Abstract

The article examines the problems and prospects for improving the training of lawyers in Ukraine. It is emphasized that the current state of Ukrainian legal education is close to critical: the number of law graduates is much higher than the market demand, entrants show low results in entrance exams for law and employers are dissatisfied with their level of professional knowledge.
 Training of lawyers in Ukraine is carried out in the "degree" form: the possibility of obtaining legal education in educational degrees "junior specialist", "specialist", "junior bachelor", "professional junior bachelor", "bachelor", "master". In the introductory campaign of 2021, 286 Ukrainian educational institutions opened their doors to lawyers: 245 – "classical", which are subordinated to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine; 25 – "departmental", which are subordinated to the central executive bodies; 16 – private. It is departmental educational institutions that received 61.8% of the total state order of bachelors in the specialty 081 "Law", which significantly exceeds the amount received by "classical" educational institutions. The authors believe that this approach is unfair to entrants in law inconsistent with the provisions of Part 4 of Article 53 of the Constitution of Ukraine: "Citizens have the right to receive free higher education in state and municipal educational institutions on a competitive basis". This necessitates the improvement of the provisions of the Conditions of Admission to Legal Specialties to ensure justice as an important component of the rule of law.
 In recent years, Ukraine has been trying to find and implement an effective training model that would optimize and significantly improve the professional level of future lawyers, meet international standards and practices, could ensure the competitiveness of the best graduates and their employment. According to the Concept for the Development of Legal Education, this is seen as a model of "end-to-end master's degree" – a five-year training program for lawyers with a master's degree immediately after completing general secondary education (no bachelor's degree).
 According to the results of the study, the authors emphasize the urgent need to improve national educational legislation, taking into account the positive experience of training lawyers in foreign countries and its adaptation to international standards and practices.