Advocacy reform in France: historical experience

Purpose: Researching the history of the advocacy in France by analyzing the main stages, their characteristics and development trends. Methodology: There were used the legal historical and formal legal methods. Results: The article gives basic stages of the advocacy reform in France, their characteristics. The first stage of the advocacy reform identified a number of irreconcilable tendencies, mainly in the sphere of state regulation of advocacy. Twenty years after the first advocacy merger by the Law of 31 December 1990 there was the second merger and the greatest merger of lawyers in France. As a result of the reform the principles of independence, the rules for the privacy, for the conflict of interests, judicial and corporate ethics - remained intact and not diluted or diminished with the advent of a huge number of converted lawyers. The legislator just gave them more postulated details in the new legal acts of the advocacy profession. The legal community continues to maintain the high standards of the traditions and fundamentals of advocacy. Novelty/originality/value: Article possesses high scientific value because it is one of the first attempts to inspect the history of the advocacy reform in France.