The article focuses on the need for the development of emotional intelligence as the most important quality of professional competence of a future legal specialist, manifested in personality-oriented activities. The authors provide an in-depth analysis of the literature on the topic and describe the results of their empirical research that reveals the level of emotional intelligence of law school students. The results obtained allow us to conclude that the development of emotional intelligence denotes the ability to be aware of one’s emotions, recognize the emotions of other people, manage their emotional states, allow a law student not only to successfully adapt to environmental conditions, constructively build interpersonal interaction, but also effectively manage difficult life situations, to successfully cope with various life difficulties. The listed qualities then become the basis of his successful professional activity. Current terms of remote study process and work create new challenges for testing the emotional intelligence. The authors suggest ways of solving the problem of emotional intelligence development in modern conditions.