Moot Court Competition Prepares Ukraine’s Future Lawyers

Increasing the preparedness of Ukrainian law students to enter the country’s legal system is a cornerstone of the Students’ League of the Ukrainian Bar Association (UBA) at the Economics and Law Faculty at Donetsk National University in Ukraine. The Students’ League has initiated projects to allow law students from all over Ukraine to network among their future legal peers, share knowledge, and develop their professional capacity. Targeted for reform by authorities, the Ukrainian legal system will benefit from an influx of trained and highly competent new lawyers.

A moot court competition, the league’s latest project, simulated the experience of arguing a case before a panel of three judges, as is required in Ukrainian criminal cases. Focusing on criminal law and criminal procedural law, the competition hosted representatives from 18 Ukrainian law schools. Judge Bohdan A. Futey, who serves on the US Court of Federal Claims in Washington, DC, and previously served as an advisor to the Working Group on Ukraine’s Constitution, was invited to begin the day’s competition with a presentation on the rule of law, a topic that Judge Futey has been closely involved with in Ukraine since 1991.

Through an Alumni Small Grant, a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State and administered by IREX, the Student’s League teamed up with the Ukrainian Bar Association (UBA) and the Ukrainian law firm Chernyavsky, Kalinska, and Partners to hold the event. The competition took place at the Economics and Law Faculty of Donetsk National University from February 15-16. Yaroslav Petrov, a 2004 alumnus of the Eurasian Undergraduate Exchange Program (UGRAD) and founder and current counsel to the Students League of the UBA, and Tatiana Selivanova, a member of the council of the Students League of the ABA and director of the Youth Center for Legal Studies at the Economics and Law Faculty, planned and coordinated the competition.  

Participants spent the two days arguing their case involving an attempted murder before a panel of three judges in special classrooms that resemble Ukrainian courtrooms. During the first day, participants were assigned the roles of prosecutors and defenders and argued their cases. For the final round, both the prosecutor and public defender were present to hear each other’s arguments, which were delivered to a new, special panel of guest judges that included two judges from the Donetsk Court of Appeals, Vladimir Kalashnikov and Andrey Sedih, and Iryna Kalinska, who is managing partner of Chernyavsky, Kalinska, & Partners, and the judge on the popular television show “Family Cases,” a real-life law series on Ukrainian television. After lengthy deliberations, the panel of guest judges announced the results of the competition, awarding first prize to participants from Donetsk National University and the Economic and Law University “KROK” (Kyiv).