THIRD GROUP OF PARTICIPANTS COMPLETED THE SECOND MODULE OF TOMORROW’S LAWYER PROGRAM
On 26 — 28 May 2017 in Lviv the third group of participants of Tomorrow’s Lawyer Program (hereinafter – the Program) completed the second Module dedicated to building collegial relations within the justice system.
At the opening ceremony the participants were greeted by the Program Manager Ms. Dariya Pysarenko and the Board Chair of the Bar Association of Legal Aid Providers Ms. Viktoriya Mitko. Viktoriya reminded that the desire to learn and strive for constant professional development, are the main features that distinguish tomorrow’s lawyers. Thus, the legal profession requires continuous self-improvement and dedication.
The Program participants were trained by a renowned business coach Ms. Iryna Gluschenkova; a human rights activist, media person and a popular writer Ms. Larysa Denysenko and a trainer on mediation Ms Alyona Gorova. The training process was supervised by the Program experts Mr. Dmytro Kukhnyuk and Ms. Yulia Lisova.
The key topics of three-day training sessions covered issues of managing difficult conversations and dealing with toxic clients; conflict of interests and the fight against corruption; mediation and the lawyer’s role in the mediation process. In the course of the Module III, participants joined an open discussion on burning issues on interaction with the courts and judges featuring Mr Volodymyr Kravchuk, judge at Lviv Administrative Court.
Answering the question, what are the main takeaways after the tree-day training, the participants stressed the usefulness of mediation in the lawyer’s work. “Mediation impressed me, although I was opposed to this method of dispute resolution, and now plan to learn more about this instrument and be an effective representative of the parties during mediation”.
According to them, “teamwork skills were the most appealing, because our daily work is being built on a hierarchy basis, and here we learned to communicate effectively with each other and distribute our roles. This is quite valuable. And the training has also proved that if the unity is lacking, then the simplest tasks are very easy to fail”.
Attorneys have declared that this Module once again “has changed the templates and forced to review the established approach to the practice of law”. They also appreciated the survey of prosecutors to evaluate lawyers, conducted within the Tomorrow’s Lawyer Program. Finally, the participants came forward with an initiative to organize a round table of prosecutors and lawyers to establish communication.
A 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.
In total from 707 applicants 111 lawyers were selected to attend four training modules in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and Kharkiv during the year of 2017.
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.
