The Ukrainian Bar Association (UBA, Association) invites you to a public discussion of the Code of Ethics for Legal Business, which will take place on July 14, 2023 online (Zoom).

Time: 17:00 – 19:00 Kyiv time (EEST)

Language of the event: Ukrainian (simultaneous translation into English provided)

In 2012, the General Assembly of the UBA approved the "Ethics Rules of a Lawyer", which contain standards of ethical and professional behavior and are mandatory for all members of the UBA, regardless of their professional affiliation (lawyers, judges, scientists, notaries, executors, etc.). An Ethics Commission was established to monitor compliance with the Rules.

Since in order to carry out legal practice (providing legal aid, legal services), a lawyer, with certain exceptions, does not necessarily have to be an attorney, a separate industry has actually formed in Ukraine, which can be identified as "legal business". This branch covers lawyers of law firms (companies) and self-employed lawyers, regardless of whether they have the status of an attorney or act as legal advisors without the status of an attorney.

Given the nature of the services provided by the legal business, as well as the relationship with clients, such clients, and quite often other stakeholders, expect the representatives of the legal business to adhere to high ethical standards. At the same time, this expected level corresponds as much as possible to the level of ethical standards and requirements applied to the legal profession in the world. However, regulation of legal business as such by the state or centralized industry organizations is practically absent. Accordingly, the issue of creating proper self-regulation mechanisms is acute.

Given the leading role of the UBA in the legal community and the active participation of representatives of the systemic legal business in the activities of the Association, its leadership in matters of self-regulation and the ability to create appropriate mechanisms are indisputable. Moreover, the UBA's steps in this direction are natural and expected, both by the UBA members and external stakeholders.

The first such steps were:

(1) creation of an appropriate working group within the UBA,

(2) its diagnosis of the most relevant issues of legal business ethics (including a review of the previous practice of the UBA Ethics Commission, analysis of incidents with an ethical component known on the legal market, surveys of lawyers, clients and other stakeholders regarding painful ethical issues, study of international experience regulation of ethical issues of lawyers, etc.) and

(3) regulation of relevant practices and codification of ethical norms and rules to be applied to legal business.

The result of these steps was the draft Code of Ethics for Legal Business (Code). The draft Code is available at the link. 

Therefore, we invite the legal community to join the public discussion on the proposed text.

Program:

Andrii Romanchuk, Vice-President of the Ukrainian Bar Association, managing partner at MORIS

• The background to the development of the Code of Ethics for Legal Business, the conceptual ideas underlying it.

Olga Vorozhbyt, attorney

Ihor Svechkar, partner at Asters

• Structure of the Code and its provisions.

Public discussion with the participation of the legal community.

If you want to join the discussion, please inform us by phone: +38 (096) 742-71-07 (WhatsApp, Telegram) or email: kpyshchyk@uba.ua. The contact person is Kateryna Pyshchyk.

To participate in the event, registration is required.

* Participation in the event is free of charge, but you can support the UBA institutional activities with a donation.

For more information about the event, please call: +38 (096) 742-71-07 (WhatsApp, Telegram) or email: kpyshchyk@uba.ua. The contact person is Kateryna Pyshchyk.