Feature Article: Advice in conflict (Ukraine)

If you are stil paying attention to what;’s happening in Ukraine this is a must read article. Here is the introduction

Ukraine’s lawyers enter 2023 under enormous personal and financial stress, but the profession is fighting hard to uphold the rule of law. Eduardo Reyes reports

The low down

When the first Russian missiles hit Kyiv on 24 February 2022, and a 50km-long invasion force started for the Ukrainian capital, the country’s court system stopped. But other activities continued – including bar exams and graduations. By the summer most courts were up and running again, including those in territory liberated from Russian control. But the legal system, like local government, is a target, and energy blackouts are limiting court and practice time. Some in the profession’s diaspora are thriving while others are struggling. Much remains on hold. Yet there are attempts to continue advice, and teaching for clients and law students in occupied territories. For those who can access justice, outcomes matter more than ever. Ukraine’s lawyers will not be bowed.

Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine is some 800km from Kyiv, a 12-hour train journey that Olha Popova undertook overnight. She left the capital on 23 February last year, arriving at the south-eastern city a day ahead of her bar exams. ‘I remember that I woke up because I thought my phone was vibrating,’ she recalls. ‘I had lots of calls from my friend and when I picked up the phone, she told me she was in Kyiv. She told me that, “we are under bombs”. I think in the first moment I couldn’t even hear what she was saying because my brain refused to accept this information.’

She was not totally unprepared, though. In line with official advice, she had in her possession key personal documents, including important medical records. All ‘for a three-day trip’, she says. ‘Normally you shouldn’t do this.’

Popova’s parents lived in Zaporizhzhia, ‘which was I think good for them because they could be less nervous because I am there and not in Kyiv’. Later on that would have been of limited comfort – at the time of writing, Zaporizhzhia is just 30km from the frontline and within range of Russian shells.

At midday on 24 February, Popova called the Bar Commission: ‘They told me that they had lots of people scheduled that day from other cities, not from Zaporizhzhia, and they understood that all these people had already arrived.’

Read more at 

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/features/advice-in-conflict-/5114716.article?utm_source=gazette_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Belsner+solution+from+the+past%3f+%7c+Big+Four+firm+boosts+legal+practice+%7c+A+new+Charles+Dickens_01%2f10%2f2023

The exam went ahead, both oral and written. ‘When the exam finished, we had the first siren in Zaporizhzhia,’ she says. ‘And of course everyone was so scared because you hear this sound for the first time. You can’t understand what you should do. It seems for you that all Russian rockets will be here in your location just in a moment.’

Carrying on

The drama of Popova’s bar exam is just one example of the determination of Ukraine’s legal profession to persevere. The average age of a Ukrainian lawyer is 39. Many practitioners recall the emergence of independent lawyers and a judiciary committed to upholding the rule of law, free of the direct state control of the Soviet era. It is this young profession, albeit one maturing at speed, which is having its resilience tested by Russia’s war.