Education policy in the field of legal studies: the constraints of development of capable of policy design

Universitй Paris 1 Panthйon-Sorbonne (see table 6)

Commoditization

In the French university ("Universitй Paris 1 Panthйon-Sorbonne", 2016; "Enseignements fondamentaux", 2016), there is a particular special program that goes along with the trend of commoditization, it is Law and Management. Also, there is a program Law and Economics that has connection to the business activities also. At the management specialization, there are two very narrow subjects that bring ideas and concepts of business to the students, they are Introduction to Marketing and Introduction to Strategy or Introduction to Human Resources Management. The students can choose among both of them. At the program Law and Economic, we can find such subjects as Business Accounting, Applied Microeconomics that develops entrepreneur and business analytical skills.Other the programs do not include a wide variety of subjects that has connection with business activities, but the specialization Law and Political Science includes two legal subjects that has connection with business activities in legal sense: Business law and Corporate law.

Rise of technology

The subject Applied statistics surely demands work with particular software.

Internationalization

Undergraduate as well as master degree programs include a variety of subjects that have the international element. For example, they are European Integration, European law, International relation and Introduction to International law, International Public law and International Private Law. Moreover, at the Master level, we can find a very interesting subject English law and English legal terminology, thus the program includes not simply international aspect, but even the acquaintance with another legal family.The language aspect is also important for the French education, thus, there are some subject that are taught in English. Moreover, there are separate language courses names as First Foreign Language and Second Foreign Language, it means that it is possible to study not only English language there.Moreover, as to the development of global legal literacy, the university suggests double degree at both undergraduate and Master level. The cooperation is established with many European countries such as Germany, Italy, UK, Spain and Romania.

Specialization

The university suggests a wide variety of specialization at both undergraduate and master levels. There are undergraduate programs named General Law; Law-Economics; Law-Philosophy; Law-Geography; Law-History; Law-History of Arts; Law-Management; Law and Political Science. There are Master programs such as General Public Law; Public Business Law; Law and Management of Local Authorities; Environmental Law; Tax Law. We see, that specializations are very narrow and develops deep specific knowledge and skills. Moreover, it is noted that lessons include different activities, there are lectures, news conferences, methodological conferences, specific courses that requires active participation of students. There are lessons that developed practical professional legal skills (file review, case study, writing notes).

Interdisciplinarity

We can say that university suggests a good variety of interdisciplinary subjects and mainly, they correspond with specialization. For example, student at Management and Economics specialization have such subjects as Statistics, Mathematics, Business Accounting, Macro and Microeconomic. At the political science specialization we can find the following subjects that develop interdisciplinary skills International Political Analysis, Epistemology and Methodology of Social Science, General Sociology and Survey Methodology. Moreover, at many programs we can find subject Fundamental Freedoms as human rights studies are very important for legal education. We can also note Logics that seems very important for contemporary lawyers. At the Master level, we pointed out Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution as interdisciplinary subject.Surprisingly, French university suggests its student the knowledge about composing and writing CV that is essential nowadays for work placement. In addition, student can enjoy sport and cultural activity according to their choice.

Table 6 Universitй Paris 1 Panthйon-Sorbonne.

Heidelberg University (see table 7)

Commoditization

The trend could be found in some specialities of law department of the Heidelberg University (Rullmann, 2016), for example they are Company (Enterprise) Law, Law of Industrial Relations and Social Law, Economic Law and European Law. In the other fields, business and management knowledge are poor.

Rise of technology

Here, we also did not find any subject that would be related to the development of computer knowledge and skills.

Internationalization

The international aspect is well-developed, there are such subjects as German and European History of Codification, European Private Law, European Private Law institute, Comparative law with the specialization History of Law and Historical Comparative Law. Generally, there is International Private Law; European and International Tax Law. Within the subject European administrative procedural law, we can see the studies concerning practice of the European court of justice and European court of human rights. We would say that internationalization in Heidelberg University has three aspects, firstly, that it has European integration implication, then it has international and comparative perspectives, all it seems to be very useful for students. Moreover, within the European and International Law on Capital Markets and Financial Services studies, students studies two semesters in Luxemburg.

Specialization

At the Heidelberg University , specialization choice is quite deliberate. There are twelve narrow so called focal areas: History of Law and Historical Comparative Law; Criminology; German and European Administrative Law; Law of Industrial Relations and Social Law; Fiscal Law; Company (Enterprise) Law; Economic Law and European Law; Law of Civil Procedure; International Private and Procedural Law; International Law; Medical Law and Health Law; European and International Law on Capital Markets and Financial Services.Within each specialization we can find very narrow subjects. For example, Negotiating Practices in the Administrative process or The Role of the Lawyer in Administrative and Administrative proceedings as well as in Alternative Dispute Resolution could be found with the specialization German and European Administrative Law. Specialization Medical Law and Health Law contains such subjects as Medical and Health Law, Introduction to Medical Ethics.In the study plan, each specialization contains the part that is named key practical skills (Schlьsselqualifikationen). As to the opportunities to obtain practical skills, for example, we can find: Moot Court in Tax Law or workshop Accounting Law Colloquium Company Legal and Tax Structuring in Practice as Alternatives at the Specialization in Fiscal Law or another practical subject The lawyer in the competitive process at the program Economic Law and European Law. However, there are also usual forms of study like seminars, lectures.Thus, we can say that specialization is characterised by two aspects, it is very narrow and tried to be as much practical as possible.

Interdisciplinarity

We could not find the lessons devoted to the study of foreign languages, but the university provides for students the opportunity to study German legal language, that is important for improving native language in legal sense. Moreover, there are subjects develops the dispute resolution skills are Negotiating Practices in the Administrative process; The Role of the Lawyer in Administrative and Administrative proceedings as well as in Alternative Dispute Resolution; Arbitration and Mediation, Alternative dispute resolution.In addition, we can note narrow subjects within economic specializations that have connection with business knowledge Corporate Tax Law; Accounting, Audit and Publicity. Medical Law and Health Law also has interdisciplinary subjects, such as Introduction to Medical Ethics.

Table 7 Heidelberg University.

KU Leuven University (see table 8)

Belgian KU Leuven University ("Education - KU Leuven", 2016) has two legal faculties, the first is the Faculty of Canon law, where it is possible to study canon law, law and religion, the second is usual Faculty of Law, which suggests only Master degrees (LLM). Foe our analysis, we have taken plans from the Faculty of Law.

Commoditization

The subjects that are connected with the global trend commoditization, we found at the program Master of Space studies. It has such subject as Introduction to Law, Policy, Business and Management, where students can obtain the basic principles of Business and Management. The subject Space Law, Policy, Business and Management includes the knowledge about Space Project Management, Project Control, Financial control, Contracts, Insurances, Licensing, Governance and commercialization. Also, there is subject Project Management, which provides students with an overview of techniques and means that are available for the start up, execution and adjustment of large projects.

The rise of technology

Here, we also did not find any subject that would be related to the development of computer knowledge and skills.

Internationalization

There are a lot of different subjects with European, International and comparative components. International component is represented by the following examples of subjects: International Finance Law; International Human Rights; International organizations; Political Crimes and Transnational Justice. Comparative aspect could be seen in the following examples: Comparative private Law; Comparative Civil procedure. Moreover there is European aspect: European Institutions, European legal theory. In addition, very important to notice, there is global law aspect, that could be seen from the following subjects: Global Law in Practice, Philosophy of Global Law.The Faculty of Law's tradition is international student mobility through the Erasmus programme and other exchange agreements. In addition, the Master Law program is a double degree program with the University of Zurich, where there is a subject Introduction to Swiss Law. Moreover, if a person becomes a student of the program Master of European Social Security, he also becomes a part of an international network of experts in the field of social security.

Specialization

There are five general specializations, which are Master of Criminology; Master of Law; Master of European Social Security; Master of Laws; Master of Space Studies. In is turn, the Master of Laws includes three following options: International and European Business Law, International and European Public Law or International and European Jurisprudence.The track International and European Business Law has such narrow subjects as The Law of the World Trade Organization; European Insurance Law; European Competition Law. The track International and European Public Law suggests such subjects as The Law of External Relations of the E.U, International Law from a European Perspective. The last track International and European Jurisprudence has very interesting and modern subjects: Philosophy of Global Law, Advanced Seminar in Global Legal Theory. Thus, subjects are narrow and correspond to the specializations.Moreover, subjects are not predominantly oriented at theory. For example, «similar to a moot court, the Global Law Pitch Competition is designed to enhance the students' argumentation skills… . Students will be given a hypothetical case dealing with global legal issues and will then work on crafting effective arguments to win the case.» ("Global Law Pitch Competition - KU Leuven", 2016). Global Law in Practice is a seminar where «students together with practitioners examine the legal issues that arise from the globalisation of social, economic and political practices» ("Global Law in Practice - KU Leuven", 2016). LL.M. Master Classes EU and Economic Law works as a clinic, where students works in groups in a practice oriented manner.Moreover, the University suggests a wide range of elective courses for all tracks. For example, they are Discrimination Law; International Arbitration; Conflict of Laws; Negotiation; Economic Analysis of Law. At the course Negotiation, the students study lawyer-client relationship, obtain communication skills and empathetic listening.At the track, Master of European Social Security, there is subject Report and Tender Writing, where students study how to prepare a report design, to collect data, to make overview of possible research methods. Then it teaches how to present organization and to write a tender.

Interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinarity is quite broad within each specialization. The most interdisciplinary seems the program Master of Space studies that has a lot of business and management studies as well as scientific and technological including Robotics, Space Weather, Satellite and Space Communications.The track International and European Jurisprudence has Philosophy of Global Law that is very much theoretical and philosophical. It also suggests Law and Conflict Analysis, which has connections with conflict resolution.The Master of Criminology has such subjects as Terrorism, Organized and Corporate Crime, Psychology, Law and Criminal Justice. Moreover, it includes Methodology Seminars: Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods.

Table 8 KU Leuven University.

Russian legal education

Saint-Petersburg State University (see table 9)

In Saint-Petersburg State University ("Архив учебных планов", 2016), at the faculty of law, we can find two levels of preparation, they are Bachelor and Master degrees.

Commercialization

At the Bachelor level, we can not see courses that would prepare lawyer to be an entrepreneur, but there is a subject Culture of Russian Business Activity.

The rise of technology

At the Bachelor level, we can find such subjects as Fundamentals of Information Culture and Information systems.

Interdisciplinarity

At the Bachelor level, there are a lot of subjects that are interdisciplinary, for example Logics, Latin Language, Business Etiquette, Legal Psychology, Economics, Philosophy, Political Science, Forensic Medicine, Life Safety, and Russian as a Foreign Language. Some of them seem to be very useful. Nevertheless, it seems they are very diverse and not all of them have legal applicability. In addition, some of these courses are usually just theoretical.

Internationalization

Bachelor degree program suggests a lot of hours that are devoted to the English language. There is a subject that is taught in English, it is International Commercial Arbitration. There are two Master programs in foreign languages: International Commercial Arbitration ( in English) and European law and economic international law (in English and German).However, there are not a lot of subjects that has international aspects, they are International law; International Private Law; History of Law and State of Foreign Countries. There is no European or Global or Comparative aspects.By the way, the university actively participated in international mobility programs.

Specialization

Bachelor has only two tracks. The first one is the Jurisprudence with Chinese language and Chinese law.We would say that this track is very favorable for the Russia state. In conditions when relations with European countries are in crisis and China became strong power in the world, Russian government and business that is also controlled by state prefer to make deals with Chinese partners. For ensuring such deals, the state needs to produce lawyers that would be able to assist in such cooperation.The second one is Jurisprudence that is oriented towards Russian legislation, this track is very broad. Thus, at the same time it includes many legal subjects that should be distributed across specialization: Ecological Law, Civil Law, Administrative Law, Criminology, Crime process, Labour law, Finance Law, Family Law, Commercial Law, Land Law, Tax Law. In addition, there are a lot of theoretical subjects such as Theory of Law and State, History of Legal and Political Doctrines, History of Russian Law and State.Surprisingly, there are subjects that have orientation at work in sate bodies: Law Enforcement Agencies, Constitutional Court in Modern Russia, Prosecutor's Supervision, Features of the Political Process in the Russian Federation, International Standards for Public Prosecutor's Office Activities; Public Prosecutor's Office in the Russian Federation as Subject of International Cooperation; Modern Criminal Procedure Policy of the Russian Federation.However, we found very important subjects that suppose to develop practical legal skills, they are Negotiation Theory and Practice, Public Speaking, International Commercial Arbitration, Practicum in Criminal Law, Practicum in Civil Law, Practicum in Constitutional Law, Alternative Dispute Resolution. However, as we have a look at the program of the courses, they are more theoretical then practical.

Masters programs have a lot of specialization fields:

1) Theory and history of state and law, history of legal doctrines;

2) Business Law;

3) Tax law;

4) Labour law, social security law;

5) Civil law, family law, private international law;

6) Civil proceedings, arbitration proceedings;

7) Criminal trial, criminalistics, the theory of operatively-search activity;

8) Medical Law;

9) Criminal law, criminology, criminal-executive law;

10) The right to the World Trade Organization and the Eurasian Economic Union;

11) Constitutional justice;

12) Legal regulation of natural resources;

13) International law;

14) Human rights and their protection;

15) International Commercial Arbitration ( in English);

16) European law and economic international law (in English and German).

Table 9 Saint-Petersburg State University.

Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (see table 10)

Commoditization

In the university at law faculty ("Юридический институт", 2016), there are no courses that would be dedicated to the preparation for work as an entrepreneur within the legal consulting company.

Internationalization

There are some basic subjects that have international aspect, they are Constitutional Law of Foreign countries; History of state and Foreign Countries; International Law; International Private Law. In addition, there are courses devoted to the European aspect, for example European Law, European convention on Human Rights: applicability. However, there is no global or transnational aspect.There are different foreign languages, such as German, English. Moreover, there are some international mobility programs.

Specialization

As in Saint Petersburg State University, the Bachelor degrees do not have narrow specializations, what seems to be significant difficulty for studying at such program. There are a lot of subjects from different legal fields: Criminal Law, Civil Law, Administrative Law, Labor Law, Business Law, Ecological Law, Municipal Law, Land Law and so on. There are again subjects that are aimed at work in state bodies, they are Prosecutor control, Law enforcement agencies, The Activity of Attorney in the Court, Judicial Expertology.

The Master degree has four tracks:

· Lawyer in the state bodies and municipal government;

· International and European law;

· Lawyer in the field of business and protection of property rights;

· Criminal justice, law enforcement and expert activities.

Interdisciplinarity

University suggests different interdisciplinary subjects: Economics; Logics; Legal psychology and Professional Ethics, History, Philosophy, Information Technologies in Legal Studies.Many legal and interdisciplinary subjects are aimed at the receiving practical knowledge, but after the analysis of annotations to courses, we can that they are mostly theoretical. In addition, it worth to mention that university has correspondence programs at Bachelor and Master Degrees.

Table 10 Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University.

Novosibirsk Institute of Law (see table 11) (Branch of National Research Tomsk State University)

Commercialization

The subject Innovation technologies touches up on the issue of project management, but it is very theoretical and topics do not have connections with legal studies.

Internationalization

There are subjects with international aspect: International law, International Private Law, History of State and Law of Foreign Countries. There is course called Foreign Language in the Legal Field, but it is studied only one year.

Specialization

This university suggests some kind of specialization, there are four tracks for Bachelor degree ("Бакалавриат | Новосибирский юридический институт", 2016), they are State Law, Civil Law, Criminal Law, and Financial Law. But we can not name it full specialization, because each track consists only of three courses. In the rest part of program, as in the other Russian universities students have to study a wide range of subjects from different fields of law. Criminal Law, administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Labor Law, Ecological Law, Land Law, Financial Law, Business Law, International Law, Tax Law, Civil law and so on. In such situation, we think specialization does not matter a lot for students' future job. All subjects are theoretical, the exam implies the test or oral answers to theoretical questions. At the Master Degree Program there is only Criminal Law specialization. Moreover, there are correspondence programs for Bachelor and Master Degrees ("Магистратура | Новосибирский юридический институт", 2016).

Interdisciplinarity

There are a lot of interdisciplinary subjects that do not have connection to the legal studies and are very much theoretical. Philosophy, Economics, Health and Safety training course, Cultural Studies, Logics, Sociology, Religion studies, Russian language and Culture of Business Speaking. However, there are some courses that have relation to legal studies, for example Fundamentals of Judicial Oratory. Moreover, there are subjects that are purely theoretical and philosophical: Ontology of Law.

The rise of technology

There are two subjects that correspond to this global trend: Informatics and Informational technologies in legal activity. Both of them imply work with computer software and internet, however, the exams for both of them are theoretical.

Table 11 Novosibirsk Institute of Law.

Conclusions

1) Generally, Russian education does not have narrow specialization at the Bachelor level. Thus, there are a lot of subjects that should be distributed across narrow fields of study. It is very hard to master all of them at the equal level.

2) There is difference in the amount of study time, in European universities, students have about 7 courses during one semester, but in Russia, there are two times more courses. Such difference does not give Russian students opportunity to study properly, because they spend less time at preparation for each subject. Thus, the knowledge they get, become very superficial.

3) The interdisciplinary subjects are very broad and have chaotic nature, sometimes they do not have applicability to the legal studies. It helps to create open-minded person, but not high quality legal expert in narrow field.

4) The majority of Russian subjects are very theoretical, some of them just tell about practice instead of training practical skills. Usually, the examination implies only the retelling of the theory in oral or written form.

5) The international aspect is not well-developed, especially there is no global aspect.

6) There are no subjects that would correspond to the global trend commercialization, it means there is no subject that would teach how to be an entrepreneur in case graduate decide to open its own consulting firm.

7) There are no subjects that study how to work and communicate with clients, instead of that the majority of subjects are aimed at work in state bodies.

8) There are correspondence programs at Bachelor and Master Levels. Usually such programs have lower quality studies than full-time programs.

We can say that in Europe they try to create a lawyer that would feel comfortable in changing environment of globalization and would be able to work across Europe and other counties. Moreover, the European Universities assists to self-realization of person, thus for example in Sorbonne, there is a subject devoted to the creation of CV and motivation letter. The Russian study plans are oriented towards students that would work mostly in Russia and will be engaged in such activities that are favorable for the state. In addition, education system provides knowledge that could be considered as irrelevant.Nevertheless, Russian Universities tries to make alike study plans with European Universities, there are some similar subjects and activities. But European Universities became a part of World University ranking each year and they have high positions, what we can not say about Russian Universities. There are no one Russian university in the ranking in terms of legal education. We suppose, that the renovation of Russian study plans is not the way for improvement of the level of Russian Education, there are some significant constraints within education policy in the legal field that we attempts to determine in the third chapter.

Chapter 3 Legal Education Policy constraints in Russia

3.1 Soviet Union legacy

Taking into consideration theoretical framework of policy design and non-design processes, we must admit that policy legacy in quite an important constrain for development of capable policy design in Russian education policy in legal field. As legal education is not only a form of transfer of the necessary professional knowledge and skills, but also it is the translation of legal experience, legal values and ideals. Higher legal education stands as one of the main forms of reproduction of the legal culture of society. Mainly, changes of the Russian higher education system occurs under the influence of the of socio-economic, political and legal factors, that have a direct impact on the content, forms and development trends of legal education(Ostapovich & Musinov, 2014). Therefore, for the understanding of current Russian education policy in terms of legal education, we should comprehend the development of legal education at the previous historical stage that was during the existence of Soviet Union with its own political, economical and ideological context. Education policy during Soviet Union period had strong ideological constraints and legal studies did not escape distortions and restrains from this side.

Ideology constrain on the government formulation intentions

From theoretical point of view, we surely can say that Soviet government did not have any instrumental intention in educating future legal professions. According to the classics Marxist doctrine, law would disappear as the ideal communist society developed. The law in capitalist countries was seen as a tool of ruling classes for reinforcing their dominance, but throughout the Soviet times law became devoted to the achievement of communism: ideology set policy objectives, chose appropriate tools and guided the evolution of law and legal education (Sahlas & Chastenay, 1998). Therefore, after the October revolution, and formation of Soviet Union, the approach to legal education started to change. Since that time, the dismantling of the legal education system directly related to the tsarist regime began, because this system had supplied people for the bourgeois state apparatus, what was inappropriate in conditions of creation of new equal opportunity society of Soviet people. Mainly, the new approach to the legal education had three features. Firstly, it was first time, when education of lawyers started to be a separate domain of education policy (Ganin, 2012). Before that legal education was not a target for the Russian government, so it was not controlled separately, thus legal education developed in frameworks of government decrees that were aimed at the education establishments generally. Secondly, the class affiliation within the Soviet society was considered to be higher than the professional affiliation (Ganin, 2012). The basis of the social structure in Soviet Union was presented by the working class as the leading force of the socialist society and two other supplementary classes such as the collective farmers and public intellectuals ("Научный коммунизм", 2016). Lawyers belonged to the intellectuals as they were engaged in creative intellectual work. However, they were not simply intellectuals, but public ones, it means that for them it was very important to be servant for the state and people and to work for public welfare. It means, being a lawyer is less important that being a servant for the people and common welfare.Thirdly, in the begging of the Soviet era, there were created public structures aimed at elimination of people legal literacy and secondary legal schools. This point refers to the structures that were aimed at replacement of higher legal education (legal training colleges and law enforcement academies). (Ganin, 2012). However, within the time, there number reduced. The USSR, legal education was maintained and financed by the state and was controlled by the central educational bodies that situated in Moscow. The creation of private educational establishments was prohibited by the law, thus law faculties were parts of state universities and later institutes (ABA/CEELI, 2003).During the Soviet period the legal education was characterized by the constant process of reorganization. It concerned the organization of educational process, the number and quality of students as well as professors and other teachers, and content of education.The total amount of lawyers that graduated from the higher school during the period of 1898 -1916 years, accounted for 30%. During the Soviet period, the proportion of graduated lawyers, from the higher school, dropped to 1.5-3% (Ganin, 2012). In 1919, the Law Faculties were abolished, but the Faculties of Social Sciences were organized instead of them (Sahlas & Chastenay, 1998). The Faculty of Social Sciences included three sections: legal-political; economic and historical. The legal-political section included the following courses: The history of the state; The evolution of political and legal thought; The public law of the Soviet Republic, The social law, The criminal sociology and politics, The labor law and social policy; The history of international relations and international law; The social hygiene and sanitary (Oleynik & Oleynik, 2005). Thus, within the faculties of social science, it was started to educate lawyers that would be needed for functioning of new Soviet institutions. The mission of new legal professionals was not to promote justice or to defend private interests, but to build communism.After the introduction of New Economic Policy in 1921, many prerevolutionary institutions were restored as there was an increasing need for professionals trained in law (Sahlas & Chastenay, 1998).In the middle of 20ies, the Faculties of Social Sciences were abolished, and instead of them, the Faculties of Soviet Law were opened (Oleynik & Oleynik, 2005). For example, the Faculty of Soviet Law at Moscow State University was divided into four departments:

· Judicial department that was aimed at the training of judges, prosecutors, investigators, notaries, advocates, administration staff of detention places and so on;

· Economic-legal department, training advisers on legal issues of economic bodies, trade unions, cooperative bodies and so on;

· Public-administrative department (later - the department of Soviet construction) aimed at the preparation of employees for The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) and so on;

· International department aimed at the preparation of employees for The People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID) and so on (Oleynik & Oleynik, 2005);

The length of study at the full-time programs was 5 years. However, mostly, the students of Soviet Law Faculties were people, who already working. Thus, there were opened correspondence and evening programs, which were the most popular among all law students. The largest legal institution was the All-Union Correspondence Institute of Law (now the Moscow State Law Academy of Kutafin), full-time programs appeared there only in 1987("Заочные юридические фабрики", 2015). However, the level of preparation of evening and time students was low. Correspondence education was aimed at maximum coverage of employees of legal authorities and it was considered as the most realistic and achievable, however it demanded providing some benefits for students.In the Soviet times, the legal profession was prestigious, however not as prestigious as military, political or artistic careers. From 1930, the Soviet Union suffered from the chronic shortage of high qualified legal professionals. Nevertheless, students who successfully completed their studies were getting automatic legal employment. Immediately, after graduation they had to accept a three-year state-posting - a form of compensation to the state subsidized education. A job distribution committee assigned job to each graduate, receiving requests from various state bodies in need of legal professionals, the graduates could express their preferences for the type of job and geographic location. The best jobs were for the students with best academic records, others could find job in isolated parts of the country. After completing this three-year job, person could ask a transfer, but the success usually was depended from the family connections (Sahlas & Chastenay, 1998).The Soviet legal profession was divided into four main branches, which still exist in Russia, they are procurators, legal advisers, notaries and advocates. The Office of Procurator was perceived as the most prestigious in the USSR. The procurators had special importance in maintaining and reinforcing the political system ideology. Thus, the proportion of Communist party members was higher than in any other branch of legal profession. Legal advisers constituted the largest branch of the legal profession in the Soviet Union. Legal advisers were appointed at work in various ministries, departments, enterprises, trade unions, associations. Notaries were employed by the stat., assigned to the district offices and reporting to the central authority. Advocates were providing clients with legal advice and others services to assist in compliance with law, and they monopolized litigation services representing clients in civil and criminal matters. By the way, the study of the criminal law was one of the most popular among law student. Advocates were the only nonsalaried legal professionals in the Soviet Union, as they were paid by the clients they represented, according to the tariffs established by the Ministry of Justice. (Sahlas & Chastenay, 1998)The educational process was modified. Before that, lectures were the main form of study process because of the absence of textbooks. In Soviet times, the seminars as a new form of study process were included in the process of education. However, there still was a lack of textbooks and other study materials and the lectures remain the main form of education, where students obtained exclusively theoretical knowledge, while the critical discussions about real situations in the society were not welcomed. Examines were passed orally, where the main criteria for evaluation was the level of knowledge that were memorized, but not analytically analyzed (ABA/CEELI, 2003).Moreover, in the educational process, there was a new feature regular classes, the student became bound to the schedule. Moreover, freedom of choice among the alternative subjects disappeared.In, 1956 Minister of Higher Education approved the Regulations on practical training of students of higher educational institutions of the USSR (Kodintsev, n.d.).The socialist state announced law schools to be the political educational institutions and started to conduct selection of entrants according to social class criteria. In the first place, the workers, peasants were accepted for the admission to the university. Even further receiving higher legal education was not an important factor in career advancement, the promotion and support of ideology was more important and could be decisive factor.The Soviet authority was not satisfied with the pre-revolutionary Russian professors, who were considered bearers of a tsarist ideology and opponents of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of state and law. Thus, a lot of law professors were fired from the university. And young new specialists were invited at the faculties, however they were unable to perform effective teaching (Oleynik & Oleynik, 2005). Moreover, because of the lack of high qualified staff in the university the practitioners from the enforcement agencies were also invited for teaching.Legal institutions were consistently losing their scientific and educational potential. At some the faculties, there were no Doctors of Science, but Candidates of Science were a rare exception, as the central figure of the pedagogical process was considered a senior teacher without a degree("Особенности советской системы юридического образования", 2015).As to the content of legal education, with the strengthening of the administrative-command system of the USSR and the formation of new political and scientific elite system, legal education merged with it ideologically and organizationally, and became one of the most important sources of replenishment of the Soviet nomenclature. The law was considered as an appendage to the sta...