"Deliberate villainy" of the Russian legal profession

Purpose: Identify and problematize such a phenomenon as «clever villainy» in the Russian legal profession. Methodology: Used statistical, hermeneutic and participatory observation. Results: Identified the problem of «clever villainy», which is the root in the modern Russian legal profession and from which many negative phenomena arise both in the field of management of the legal profession and in the legal profession itself. Novelty/originality/value: Lack of research on «smart villainy» in the legal profession. The author’s use of empirical data, as well as an appeal to an external observer (F.M.Dostoevsky) testifies to the originality of the study. The scientific-value character of the research is evidenced by the recommendations that the author puts forward, based on the idea of «clever villainy».