The use of the Rules of Attorney’s-at-Law Ethics (the Rules) in attorney’satlaw activities is a key issue in the context of consolidation and exercise of the generally accepted ethical approaches to professional attorney’s-at-law activities. The Rules as modern ethical standards, by their essence, should be formed with due regard for the realistic objectives of the Bar in Ukraine and from the perspective of protection of the legal professional community from illegal encroachments on the freedom and independence of attorney’s-at-law activities. Accordingly, the Rules are seen not only as a regulator of attorney’s-at-law conduct, but also as an element of attorney’s protection which establishes whether certain forms and limits of conduct used by an attorney in the course of his/her activities as attorney-at-law are legitimate, and in the case they are, the Rules actually acknowledge that such conduct as legitimate.

The purpose of the article is to substantiate the approaches to determining the functions of the Rules in the proceedings which involve protection of the rights and interests of attorneys-at-law.

From the perspective of using the opportunities provided by the Rules, it should be noted that this document is a certain agreement between society and attorneys regarding the restrictions which the Ukrainian Bar voluntarily assumes in connection with the special social status of attorney-at-law and guarantees of his/her professional activities.

The Rules should not only define the relations between attorneys-at-law and regulate their conduct, but also be an efficient tool ensuring protection against illegal actions on the part of individual officials of governmental bodies and against non-fulfillment of the State’s obligations to the Bar in general. Besides, the Rules are a system of guidelines which attorneys-at-law may use, and they consolidate a uniform system of criteria for evaluating the ethical aspects of attorney’s-at-law conduct. If an attorney, while facing conflict situations, or in his/her daily practice relies on declaring that his/her actions comply with the Rules, this will make impossible a groundless restriction of his rights by procedural opponents, since in such a case the attorney performs his/her duty to society. Therefore, it is quite logical to refer to certain aspects and provisions of the Rules while preparing procedural documents, and to mention the Rules in support of own position as a source of law on par with codes, laws, judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, and other statutory regulations.

In terms of protection, of relevance is the right to interpret the Rules which belongs exclusively to the Congress of the Bar and the Council of the Bar of Ukraine, which means that if any non-standard challenging situation arises whereby an attorney becomes aware of the risk that while intending to make an illegal influence on him/her and for the purpose of destabilizing his/her activities, the opponent party can file a complaint requesting to bring this attorney to disciplinary liability, in such a case there is every reason for this attorney to be the first to contact the Council of the Bar of Ukraine and the Committee for legal ethics at the National Bar Association of Ukraine, within its competence, as regards preparing proposals on legal ethics in connection with the decisions of the Congress of the Bar of Ukraine, decisions of the Council of the Bar of Ukraine, for the purpose of obtaining appropriate explanations of the Rules.

Based on the study made, the author has established that the Rules perform not only an endogenous function, acting as a regulator of attorney’s-at-law activities. The Rules contain the mechanisms using which attorneys-at-law can protect their rights and interests in response to external influences of exogenous nature, and provide a substantiation of the forms and limits of their conduct through interpretation and explanation of the Rules.