Pacta Sunt ServandaKaraganda · legal services
+7 778 060 8463
Nobody can guarantee you a court result. An offer to secure an outcome through connections is an offer to commit a crime — and the person making it is not going to be standing beside you when it goes wrong.
Legal services · Karaganda

Agreements are to be kept.
So are the ones you sign with your lawyer.

Pacta Sunt Servanda provides legal services to businesses and individuals in Karaganda: contracts, disputes, debt recovery and the ordinary legal work of running a company.

The name is the oldest rule in contract law, and it cuts both ways. Before anything else, a client should know who they are hiring, what they are buying and what nobody can sell them.

what was agreed what was done
Pacta sunt servanda
Agreements must be kept
Before you hire anyone

Who may lawfully provide paid legal assistance

In Kazakhstan this is not open to everybody with a website. The law distinguishes between categories of provider, each with its own status and its own register. Establish which category is in front of you before paying a retainer — it determines what that person may actually do for you.

Category one

Advocates

Hold a licence and belong to a regional bar association. Representation in criminal proceedings is theirs; they also act in civil and administrative matters.

Check: the bar's register of advocates
Category two

Legal consultants

Provide paid legal assistance under the framework introduced for this profession, subject to membership of a chamber of legal consultants and its register.

Check: the chamber's register of consultants
Category three

In-house and other lawyers

Employed lawyers working for their own employer, and specialists whose work does not amount to providing paid legal assistance to outside clients.

Check: whom they actually act for
Ask the question directly. "In which capacity are you acting, and in which register can I find you?" A professional answers in one sentence. Anyone who treats the question as an insult has told you what you needed to know.
The engagement

Six things that belong in the contract

Payment to the company's account, always. A request to pay a private card for legal work is a request to leave you without proof of what you paid for. Keep the contract, the invoice and the receipt together.
Nemo iudex in causa sua
No one is a judge in their own cause — which is why the outcome is never the lawyer's to promise
What nobody can sell you

Four promises that should end the meeting

Each of these is offered somewhere every week, usually to people already under pressure. Every one of them costs more than the fee.

"I guarantee we will win"No lawyer controls the evidence, the other side or the court. An honest assessment names the risks and the range of outcomes; a guarantee names nothing.
"I have connections there"This is a solicitation to pay a bribe, whatever words are used. It exposes the client to criminal liability and, very often, simply takes the money and delivers nothing.
"Pay everything in advance, in cash"Fees may reasonably be paid in advance under a contract, to the company's account, with a receipt. Cash to a person, with no document, is not a legal service.
"We will sort out the documents afterwards"The contract comes first. A representative acting without proper authority can have their filings rejected — after the deadline has passed.
If you are asked for money to pass on to somebody: refuse, keep the correspondence and report it. Being the person who paid does not make you the victim in the eyes of the law.
Services

What we do

Contracts

Drafting and reviewing commercial contracts, and rewriting the ones that have already caused an argument.

Disputes

Pre-trial claims, negotiation and representation in civil and commercial proceedings, with an honest assessment of prospects at the start.

Debt recovery

Demands, proceedings and enforcement — including telling a client when a debtor has nothing worth pursuing.

Business support

Corporate documents, counterparty checks, employment paperwork and the routine legal housekeeping companies postpone.

We give the prospects assessment before the invoice, not after. Sometimes it says the claim is strong. Sometimes it says that settling, or walking away, costs less than winning — and a client is entitled to hear that from their own lawyer.
Questions

Asked regularly

i.How much will my case cost?

It depends on the stage reached and on what the other side does, which is why the contract should set out how the fee is calculated rather than a single number. Ask for the realistic total range, including state duty and expert costs, and ask what would make it higher.

ii.How long will it take?

Longer than clients expect. Timeframes depend on the court's schedule, the conduct of the other side and any appeal. Anyone promising a date is promising something outside their control.

iii.Can I do it myself?

For small, documented claims, sometimes yes, and we will say so. Representation earns its cost where the sums are significant, the facts are contested or the other side has a lawyer.

iv.I won, but the debtor has nothing.

A judgment is a right to enforce, not a payment. This is why the debtor's actual assets are worth checking before litigation rather than after — the pleasant judgment and the empty enforcement file are the same case.

v.How do we start?

Bring the documents — the contract, the correspondence, anything signed — and a short account of what happened, in order. An hour spent on that produces a better assessment than a week of explanation without papers.

Contact

Bring the documents

The contract, the correspondence and the dates. Fees and scope are agreed in writing before work begins, and payment is to the company's account.

Registered addressMicrodistrict 15, building 21, apt. 57
Karaganda, Kazakhstan
Never promisedA court outcome, or influence over one