Firstly the community Dissernet, then the Russian State Library tested his doctoral thesis for plagiarism and discovered that only 0.68% of the text was original work, the remainder having been copy-pasted from other sources.

[6] Astakhov represented some of Russia's most high-profile public figures, including Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, the descendants of the Romanov dynasty, several Russian pop-stars and others.

[9] The court was not impressed by Astakhov's poetry skills and Pope received a 20-year jail sentence; he was later pardoned by Vladimir Putin and was flown back to US.

[10] In 2000-2001 Pavel Astakhov helped Russian media tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky to escape two fraud charges.

Later, Astakhov and another prominent lawyer, Henri Reznik, managed to halt the criminal case against Gusinsky, who flew to Spain.

In December 2003, Pavel Astakhov sent a letter to the US Embassy in Moscow, advising President George W. Bush and Ambassador Alexander Vershbow that he would like to represent the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The show became enormously popular and Astakhov set up a production company, Pravo TV, to make other programs with a legal theme.

[6] Astakhov is also a prolific author, writing about his experiences in the Moscow legal system, as well as producing a series of novels featuring lawyer protagonists.

Spouse, Svetlana Alexandrovna Astakhova (born September 13 1968) — general producer of several TV programs of her husband: "The Hour of the Trial", "Three Corners", "The Astakhov Case".

[18] On November 21, 2022, one of the sons, Anton Astakhov, was sentenced by the Frunzensky District Court of the city of Saratov to 3.5 years[citation needed] in a general regime colony under part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by an organized group or on a particularly large scale).

According to investigators, Anton Astakhov committed the theft of 75 million rubles from Saratov Nizhnevolzhsky Commercial Bank.

[23] As ombudsman Astakhov sought to raise awareness of the welfare of Russian children adopted by foreign families.

"[24] Astakhov was deeply involved in the preparation of the Russian-US treaty on adoption, signed by the US Secretary of State and the Foreign Minister of Russia on 13 July 2011.

[34] Some experts, however, pointed out that Astakhov's reliance on financial incentives had led to an increasing number of children being returned to orphanages.

[35] Mizulina said that 30,000 children had been sent back to institutions by their Russian adoptive, foster or guardianship families in the last three years: "Specialists call such a boom in returns a humanitarian catastrophe".

[35][36] Despite the grave Russian domestic statistics of disruption of adoptions, Pavel Astakhov drew media attention to the case of a 7-year-old, Artem Saveliev (Justin Hansen), who was adopted in 2009 by the Tennessee nurse Torry Hansen, but in April 2010 was sent back to Russia with a note saying that he was "mentally unstable".