The prospects for legal expenses insurance as a mechanism of ensuring availability of legal services in Russia

The subject. Nowadays a variety of civil law studies actively discusses the issues of insurance
regulation. However, legal expenses insurance is unknown to Russian legal doctrine and
practice. The research focuses on legal expenses insurance.
The purpose of the article is to reveal a potential that legal and economic instruments have in
comparison to other guarantees of unobstructed enjoyment of the rights and legitimate interests.
The methodology. It is a comparative law approach that allows to describe the peculiarities
of legal expenses insurance in foreign countries, outline the criteria to match the existing
models, determine their similarities and differences as well as benefits and drawbacks. Economic
analysis of law is helpful to evaluate the convenience of a new tool for citizens and
its influence on the level of their legal expenses.
The results, scope of it’s application. As a result, the article argues that legal expenses insurance
improves the financial accessibility of qualified legal assistance and stimulates legal
activity, since it does not impose any formal restrictions on the clients, the content of the
contract or the sphere of its application. Meanwhile, the research formulates and characterizes
some difficulties that may occur in the course of introduction of this institution to
Russian law. Primarily, such obstacles include the low level of insurance culture, the need
of significant amendments to legislation in force and the lack of professional expertise in
this field. Despite different political and legal obstacles, it is necessary to create an effective
model of legal expenses insurance in Russia in order to improve Russian legal system and
form the culture of getting legal services in time.
Conclusions. The insurance mechanisms provide citizens with an opportunity to minimize
their legal and financial risks connected to unforeseeable situations, which require covering
costs of professional legal assistance. The authors conclude that legal expenses insurance
is able to become an additional guarantee to the right to qualified legal assistance in case
of appropriate adaptation to current conditions of Russian legal life and legal mechanisms.

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