ACTIVITIES OF BAR OFFICES AND BAR ASSOCIATIONS AS ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

Abstract

The Law of Ukraine “On the Bar and Legal Practice” provides for the functioning of bar office and bar associations as organizational forms of attorney legal practice. At the same time, the legal status of these subjects needs to be determined from the point of view of possible belonging to a circle of economic subjects. Issues of the legal status of law firms and law associations are discussed in research of V.M. Bogoslavets, O.O. Jaburiya, K.A. Zatulko and M.E. Kiselyov, Yu.M. Yurkevich and others. They considered the issue of the possible belonging of specified legal entities to the number of economic entities, analyzed their organizational and legal form. We believe that conclusions about the nature of their activities are decisive for the assertion that legal entities belong to the circle of economic entities. The analysis of the activities of bar offices and bar associations from the point of view of its possible qualification as an economic activity according to the existing legal regulation was the main task of the authors of the publication. During the research, it was found that bar offices, bar associations provide services, and perform work for a fee based on contracts on the provision of legal assistance. Such activity ensures the satisfaction of the private interests of these legal entities in profit and, at the same time, the implementation of important public interests in providing legal assistance to a wide range of individuals and legal entities. The activity of bar offices and bar associations is the activity of professional entities endowed with rights and obligations identical to the rights and obligations of economic entities. Under such conditions, it is logical to conclude that bar offices (associations) have the status of economic entities. The conducted research confirmed the presence of features of entrepreneurial companies in the understanding of this concept by the Civil Code of Ukraine in bar offices and bar associations. In the future, it is worth finalizing the issue of the specific organizational and legal form of these entities and enshrining the relevant provision in the Law of Ukraine “On the Bar and Legal Practice”.