On November 28, 2018, the Federal law "On the amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation" No. 451-FZ, coming into force from the date of the beginning of the activities of cassation courts of Generaljurisdiction and appellate courts of General jurisdiction, not later than Oc- tober 1, 2019, was adopted. Among other changes in the arbitration and civil procedure law, the law provides for new provisions in terms of the require- ments imposed on the legal representative in the relations of contractual representation, which is of interest in the light of the ongoing debate in the last few years on the need to introduce professional qualification for repre- sentatives in arbitration and civil proceedings. The adoption of the Federal law "On amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation" No. 451-FZ No. 451-FZ was the result of consideration of the bill submitted to the State Duma by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, however, the innovations proposed by the Supreme court in terms of professional rep- resentation were not fully included in the text of the law. In particular legal qualification in the form of the requirements about a representative with the higher legal education or academic degree on legal specialty was introduced for the representatives in arbitration courts, and in courts of law by lawyers with the higher legal education or candidates of legal sciences there had to be only the representatives on the cases considered in judicial instances above district courts. In the study the changes given above of procedural legislation were considered and analysed and the attempt to estimate their practical importance was made.