According to data kindly provided by the Ministry of Justice, a total of 50 people became attorneys in 2023 (and another individual appeared on the attorneys' list but then disappeared from it, with no further information available about this situation). Simple arithmetic shows that during the same period, 139 people left the legal profession.
"Former" employees among attorneys (5)
Firstly, it should be noted that based on the 2021 legislative changes, we were able to identify with a high degree of certainty only 5 newcomers (10% of the newly admitted) from the state agencies. We have previously
written about two of them (one from the investigators and another from the police force). Among the others, one had worked in the prosecutor's office for 3 years (from 2019 to 2022), another had 20 years of experience in financial investigation bodies, and there are solid grounds to consider the latter person as having joined the legal profession from military justice bodies after a long service. There is also one attorney with a long tenure as an assistant to the court chairman, though with a significant break between the end of his court service and his entry into the legal profession.
Another group accepted into the legal profession in 2023 (3 persons) have law enforcement backgrounds in their service records (including one with experience in OMON (riot police)), but quite some time ago. As mentioned before, the mere fact of having once worked in law enforcement says little; there are various tracks and career trajectories in the lives of lawyers that do not preclude them from being and becoming good attorneys who respect and adhere to the law and legal ethics.
As can be easily seen, there isn't a significant influx of employees from the respective agencies into the legal profession. Everything fits within the usual pattern of transition into the legal profession as part of professional movement or as a transition after acquiring the required length of service.
Attorneys without digital trails
Overall, when characterizing those who joined the legal profession in 2023, it's notable that a significant number have virtually no digital trails. For a substantial number of attorneys, there are neither online publications, articles, nor mentions. The only mentions that are typically available in such cases are often either associated with participation in ideologically correct events (such as the Belarusian Republican Union of Youth or student union activities) or with their capacity as attorneys. Naturally, this doesn't apply to everyone, but it does to a significant portion. It appears that the ideological suitability of candidates is becoming increasingly evident: any activity not directly sanctioned by the state is a hindrance to becoming an attorney. This should be considered a problem, as it would be preferable to see more attorneys who are participants in legal competitions, authors of publications in scientific collections, participants in international contests, and generally professionals whose story doesn't start with obtaining a license.
Additionally, for a number of attorneys, even on the website of the Belarusian Republican Bar Association and corresponding territorial Bars, there is a lack of not only a photograph but also a contact number or email address (for example, the advice office of the Rechytsa District). Among the "mysterious" legal consultations, which include attorneys not mentioned anywhere else, are those in the Dobrush and Buda-Koshelevo districts.
However, we are more convinced that if information on some of the other attorneys admitted to the Bar in 2023 was not found, it was not due to their presence in corresponding bodies. Most attorneys without digital footprints are from relatively remote and minor legal consultations. The observed pattern suggests that such consultations are more likely to take in young lawyers, with a few exceptions, which we will mention later.
Young attorneys in the legal profession (18)
We ask our readers not to perceive ageism in this categorization. We use the term "young attorneys" to evaluate how the legal profession in 2023 was replenished with graduates who had not had significant activity after university, except for internships in law firms or work as assistant lawyers. We were able to identify with a certain degree of reliability 18 attorneys joined the advocacy immediately after graduation (⅓ of the newly admitted). This does not mean that among the others there are no more attorneys who entered the legal profession in 2023 immediately after university, however, as already mentioned above - the Bar is replenished with people with minimal digital traces, without publications, information about any participation in relevant events, etc.
Professors in the legal profession (4)
This is also quite an interesting phenomenon. We cannot rely on any objective data at the moment, but previously the phenomenon was more common when an attorney started teaching, rather than a lecturer becoming an attorney. In 2023, 4 teachers of legal disciplines in universities became attorneys (here we reiterate that the opportunities for verifying the remaining newly arrived attorneys are very limited, although, teachers, obviously, are mentioned in the lists on websites).
Legal business, law firms, commercial lawyers (9)
These categories of lawyers have always been traditional "suppliers" of young attorneys. Throughout 2022, employees of former law firms made up a quite noticeable part of new attorneys, now the flow of those who can be associated with specific law firms has significantly decreased — only 3 are identified as previously working in law firms. Apparently, almost everyone who wanted to switch to advocacy has already done so. We counted 6 attorneys from the number of commercial lawyers (including those who were previously self-employed).
Attorneys with a "regular" career path (11 individuals)
As in other periods, in 2023, various individuals entered the Bar, including after certain pursuits and movements towards advocacy throughout a certain part of their lives. The paths are quite diverse: some entered advocacy, then left, and then returned; some were in-house lawyers, then transitioned to the Bar (it's worth noting that there are very few of these, perhaps surprisingly few); some came from various government agencies and unions, while others even moved from sales, having previously worked in special purposes militia unit and as an enterprise lawyer.
Among relatively interesting career trajectories is the transition to advocacy (specifically, to the "problematic" legal consultation offices) of atypical candidates. Thus, the deputy manager for ideology of the Mogilev City Housing and Utilities Department joined the legal consultation office of the Belynichi district, where there were no attorneys, and the chief labor rights inspector of the Mogilev regional organization of the Belarusian Union of Workers of State and Other Institutions joined the legal consultation office of the Kruglyansky district, where there were also no attorneys.
Who else is left Thus, we were unable to identify 5 attorneys (10% of the total number of lawyers admitted to the bar in 2023), of which 4 belong to smaller consultation offices, and only one attorney belongs to a consultation office in Minsk. Based on indirect data, we believe that in this group, the distribution of where specialists came from into the legal profession will not significantly differ from the overall distribution.