The Fourth Group of Tomorrow’s Lawyer Program Participants Began Training

KYIV – 1-3 April 2017. The fourth group of participants in the “Tomorrow’s Lawyer” Program (the “Program”) began their first module dedicated to building relations with clients.

The lawyers were trained by a certified coach Iryna Hluschenkova and a Program expert Oleksandra Yanovska with the support of Andriy Kostin and Julia Lisova. The one to open the training module was the Program Manager Andriy Vyshnevsky. The President of the Ukrainian Bar Association Denys Bugay and Director of the “Bar Assocaition of Legal Aid Providers” Victoria Mitko greeted the participants. The training was also attended by the Project Manager of the “Quality and Accessible Legal Aid in Ukraine” Oksana Kikot, the Project Expert Ivanna Ibragimova and the team of the Program.

According to participants, they had high expectations for the Program, which still managed to exceed: “we have obtained knowledge that had never been taught before”, “we did not have a chance to rest, instead we strongly and persistently worked on improving our soft skills and looking forward to the next module”, “three days “race” passed by in a single burst”.  Lawyers said that the training helped them to step out of daily working life and rethink their actions while working with the client to see a different angle to the common situations: “For all my life I have been working with papers, and now I will work with people”.

Participants obtained an impressive arsenal of tools for effective communication, managing emotions, which could be used in further work, “yet today I began to speak with a client differently”. Lawyers also realized how important to work in teams and hear colleagues: “At first, it was difficult to work in groups. We were not listening to each other. We used to work individually. On the third day we came at ease, because we started listening to each other”.  The participants witnessed the formation of a true community of professionals, when the overall result depends on the interaction of each member.

Complete photo-report of the event is available by the link

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“Tomorrow’s Lawyer” Program is being implemented by the Ukrainian Bar Association (UBA) and the Bar Association of Legal Aid Providers (BALAP) supported by the “Quality and Accessible Legal Aid in Ukraine” (QALA) Project funded by the Government of Canada, implemented by the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) in cooperation with the Coordination Centre for Legal Aid Provision.

“Tomorrow’s Lawyer” Program — the first All-Ukrainian professional development program for lawyers, intended to form a strong and active community of lawyers who are expected to become the agents of change with high ethical standards of work; introduce reforms, both at the regional and national levels; improve standards of legal aid providing and facilitate the effective implementation of self-government functions.

The Program consists of four training modules, covering the most important aspects of legal practice, namely attorney-client relations, building collateral relations in the justice system, communication within the legal society, public relations and media.