Dr Paweł Łabieniec

University of Łódź

English abstract: Among the legal professions in Poland, the profession of a legal advisor is the most suitable to show how the responsibility of this job and those who perform it has been perceived over time, in the context of the social and economic changes in the legal environment. The transformation of the job, which in the pre-1989 communist period was performed mostly under an employment contract, into a profession of public trust in the strict sense, was underpinned by radical political, social and economic changes. This article presents how these changes turned the job of a legal advisor into a profession. The area of competencies of legal advisors gradually grew, making these professionals increasingly responsible for maintaining high standards of the rendered services and for setting ever higher ethical requirements. The changes in the methods of practising the profession required regular modifications of codes of professional ethics. This process provides ample evidence that professional conduct is a reflection of the social role which the professionals are expected to play.

Keywords: legal advisors, history of the profession of legal advisor, professional ethics of legal advisors, responsibility of a professional

Language: Polish

Received: 06.06.2017
Accepted: 01.09.2017

Published: Number 1(16)/2018, pp. 34-45.