The article is devoted to the study of the matter of the concept of «juristic person» and the criteria for dividing the category of juristic persons into two large groups, juristic persons of private law and juristic persons of public law, in the context of the wide use of these concepts in the field of public law. The shortcomings of the normative and doctrinal definitions of the concept of «juristic person» are shown, resulting in its insufficient definition, in particular, in attempts to transfer this concept to the public-law sphere. Various approaches to distinguishing juristic persons of public and private law have been analyzed. It is shown that the normative criterion does not provide such a distinction, and the classification criteria proposed by scientists, which have a civilian nature, are significantly incomplete. The lack of a clear definition of the meaning of the term «juristic person» and its derivative -«juristic person of public law» -in the context of public legal relations leads in practice to ambiguous legal understanding, collisions and disputes. Since the concept of a juristic person is adapted to the field of civil law to characterize the legal capacity of the subject primarily with respect to property and entrepreneurial rights and powers, it is argued that, in the public legal sphere, the concept of «juristic person» does not bring additional content, and therefore is unsuitable for use as a legal characteristic of a subject of public legal relations. It is shown that all entities to which it is customary to apply the term «juristic person» are characterized by the presence of a certain (albeit different) scope of rights and powers both in the civil and public legal spheres, i.e. simultaneously possessing two legal statuses -public and private. Such statuses for various entities have different scope and are in the relation «main -subsidiary». Hence the division of legal subjects into two groups follows depending on which of the statuses -public or private -is the main one. It is proposed to keep the designation «juristic person» only for legal entities for which civil legal status is the main one. Legal entities with the main public legal status may have a subsidiary civil legal status designed to serve their main activity of a public-legal nature. In this case, it is proposed to designate the entity on the base of its public legal status