I can somewhat speak as to the legal profession status in the USSR.
While it was perceived as an intellectual's trade, it definitely lacked the prestige of the legal profession in Western countries, especially in the English-speaking world. There are several reasons for this.
First, when the state consistently denies the very concepts of private property, private enterprise and capital and manages the economy in a centralized command manner, civil law (contract, property law) becomes very primitive and investment simply disappears (because investment is capital). Civil law doesn't need to be complex, because everything is decided in the center, in the bowels of the vast governmental bureaucracy. Rules are prepared by bureaucrats of the state planning system to ensure maximum control from the state and as little space for independent initiative as possible (since independent initiative would undermine the very foundations of centralized planning). Commercial law exists to coordinate independent multiple independent initiatives. When there is central planning - this doesn't exist.
To give you an approximation, imagine the whole Soviet economy as one giant very tightly controlled monopolistic company with its own banks, factories, publishing departments, communications networks etc. When it comes to Soviet territory the only entity this company did "business" with is itself. There were no independent actors. You don't really need laws people can argue about. However politics becomes paramount. But political issues were largely decided using political - not legal means.
Second, in the USSR, at least from the government's perspective, human and any individual rights were not an issue. The state was always right and justified, regardless of what it did. Lawyers are needed and respected in systems, where there is an assumption that things can go wrong with the system. The Soviet system was based on a diametrically opposite assumption.