The dreadful and unjustified Russian attack on Ukraine is absolutely heartbreaking. Everybody wants to help, lawyers included, so I put together some resources on how you can help refugees fleeing Ukraine as a lawyer.
It is usually the best idea to help with your own expertise, whenever possible, to best serve those who need it.
What can a lawyer from anywhere do to help? Can we use legal design and legal tech to help Ukraine?
1. Donate
Generally the best use for your privilege is to give the resources to people who know what they are doing. There is no point in you guessing what a person in so extremely different circumstances needs and there are organisations with significant expertise that can use the money better.
So please: donate. Do your research and support a renowned NGO or give money an open account maintained by some public institution (such as Ukrainian embassies abroad) and give real help that people actually need.
2. Give pro bono legal advice
2.1 Are you a human-law lawyer? (an immigration expert, human rights lawyer, criminal or employment lawyer)
You can help refugees from Ukraine directly within your expertise. Search in your home country, maybe the local Bar Association has a list of lawyers offering free legal service to the people fleeing Ukraine.
Didn’t find anything? There are big self-organised groups of lawyers everywhere. You can also help build FAQs online (see below).
2.2 Are you business-law lawyer?
Find ways to help with what you have, where you can:
- Know your way around software law? Offer your help to an NGOs putting up legal information online, they may need some advice on licensing or data protection.
- Understand commercial contracts or procurement? Perfect, you can help them buy wholesale directly from suppliers.
3. Help to build a FAQ or legal chatbot for legal self-help
Contacting a lawyer can be intimidating, and a lot of questions can be solved through easy Q&A process or frequently asked questions. There are many initiatives of this kind. The team of Immigration4Ukraine with help from CEE Legal Tech Blog is putting together a FAQ for all of Europe as well as legal self help chatbot to give quick and targeted guidance for those in need on most common questions.
If interested in connecting, let me know at ukraine@attorneyatcode.com.
4. Join a legal design sprint
Legal Creatives are coordinating a legal design sprint. Legal design is crucial tool when helping people without legal education who need clear and easy advice without having to plough through jargon and endless paragraphs. The team of Legal Creatives is experienced and capable of giving a lot of guidance.
If interested, you can join tady.
5. Speak Ukrainian or Russian? Translate.
Even if you are not in a position to offer pro bono help (perhaps you are not qualified to offer legal advice in your country) or don’t know your way around chatbots and legal design, but you speak Ukrainian or Russian, help translate.
As a non-native speaker, I know how big of a pain it is to translate legal texts, and your knowledge of subject matter can be a huge asset. Try contacting some of the above that speaks to you the most.
6. Join legal tech idea sprint on how to improve the systems helping people fleeing Ukraine
Law School 2.0 is calling a 48-hour legal tech idea-sprint to address the challenges faced by individuals fleeing Ukraine, and the capabilities of organisations and individuals assisting.
The event will take place from March 18 – March 20, online.
If interested, you can join here.
7. Help your authorities
Take a hard look at the processes around fleeing Ukraine and try to research information on how to meet all the requirements. Is the information clear and concise? In Ukrainian? Can you find it on google (try typing common search terms in Ukrainian, Russian, or English – google translate will help)? If not – reach out to your authorities.
Example: Czech Ministry of Labour put up an info flyer, but some of the links were broken -> I emailed them that with a whole bunch of other suggestions, and they fixed it.
What to look out for:
- information in native language and Ukrainian, bonus points for Russian
- clear navigation on the website in both native language and English
- clear navigation e.g. using Ukrainian flags
- FAQ for most asked questions in human language
- Process maps, flowcharts
- Googleability/SEO
Závěrečná ustanovení
While law does not seem to be the solution to this situation right now, we can do our best we can to help people in need. Every little bit counts.
Did I miss some initiative? Let me know in the comments, I will regularly update this post.
💙💛
-Attorney@Code
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