Introduction. Currently, legal education is focused on a competence-based approach that replaces knowledge-based. Graduates of legal specialties need not only to have legal knowledge, but moreover, they should be ready to put the relevant knowledge into practice in various areas of legal activity. That is what provides prerequisites for further scientific research, generalization and search for ways to implement legal counseling in the system of professional education. Moreover, students studying in an educational organization not in the legal areas of training need legal assistance on issues related to their livelihoods, education, labor relations, and so on. Purpose: on the basis of studying the theoretical and methodological foundations of legal counseling of students in the system of higher professional education, to identify the features of this process. Materials and methods. Analysis and study of legal, as well as psychological and pedagogical literature, experience in organizing legal counseling in universities; modeling, questioning, qualitative and quantitative analysis of the research results; study of educational programs and regulatory documents of the educational organization. Results, discussion. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the author revealed the features of legal counseling in the system of higher professional education and built a model for the organization of legal counseling of students in the system of higher professional education. The practical significance of the study lies in the development of specific implementation of the following recommendations for universities to improve the process of legal counseling of students in higher education. Conclusion. Students of non-legal training areas need to organize free legal counseling at the university, due to the fact that they often have questions for the solution of which special legal knowledge is required. Currently, universities do not have full-fledged information support for the activities of the legal clinic for counseling students, and a full-fledged system for the implementation of legal counseling of students at the university has not been established.