The need to compensate for material and moral damage caused to a person is a constitutional principle, which is implemented in Article 6.272 of the Civil Code of the Republic of Lithuania, establishing the non-contractual liability of the State for damage caused by pre-trial investigation officers, a prosecutor, a judge, or a court (hereinafter referred to as the “Officials”). Furthermore, Article 6.272(4) of the Civil Code provides that if the damage is caused by the intentional actions of the Officials, the State shall acquire the right of recourse in accordance with the procedure laid down by law. In Lithuania, the number of cases of compensation for damage caused by unlawful acts of the Officials is increasing, while the recourse procedure has not yet been applied even though 20 years have passed since the above-mentioned rule of the Civil Code came into force. The authors of the article search for the answer why the recourse procedure is not applied in practice by analysing the legal regulation of the regression and the content of intentional fault using theoretical, comparative, linguistic, historical, jurisprudence analysis, and related legal methods.

Legal ethics is important for the daily work of attorneys; yet, it hardly receives enough attention in the training of lawyers. This article seeks to show how legal ethics matters and which consequences seemingly small ethics violations can have for attorneys. One key aspect of the client-attorney relationship is the trust which is placed in the attorney by the client. Both Germany and Lithuania prohibit that attorneys represent both parties in a legal dispute, a prohibition which can be surprisingly far-reaching. In this article the authors, both of whom are practicing attorneys, look at the differences and similarities between the legal frameworks in Lithuania and Germany as well as the impact the globalization and Europeanization of legal ethics has had on the domestic laws in their respective jurisdictions. Particular attention is given to the sanctions which can be imposed on attorneys for misconduct in the form of representation which betrays the trust of a client and which is therefore specifically prohibited by the law. Among other issues, the distinction between professional sanctions and punishments under criminal law will be dealt with, as well as the conditions under which attorneys in either jurisdiction are barred from accepting a specific case to begin with.