The Association of Legal Clinics of Ukraine and the Polish Legal Clinics Foundation have implemented a project to strengthen access to justice. Organizations have jointly developed an International Communication Platform for Students, Teachers and Clients of Legal Clinics.
The project was supported by KyivLEPP — Kyiv Legal Empowerment Practical Program, an incubator of innovative ideas in the field of access to justice in Ukraine and the world. We have prepared a scheme for you to better understand who are the participants of the project.
The purpose of the platform:
- legal assistance to clients. Ukrainians living in Poland and Polish living in Ukraine would be able to get legal assistance in case of legal issues related to:
- tax disputes;
- family disputes;
- problems when crossing the border, etc.
- Sharing experiences between students. Students would be able to exchange experience, practice under the guidance of curators of legal clinics.
- Cooperation of clinics. Participants will be able to work together, exchange information, follow legal advice in real-time. Teams would be able to share documents and assign tasks.
- Development of language skills. Participants can improve legal English and boost their speaking skills.
Forms of cooperation:
Polish and Ukrainian legal clinics will:
- get access to common cases
- have an opportunity to exchange samples of documents, research resources;
- hold joint events,
- have an opportunity to share knowledge, etc.
“The idea of the IT platform arose due to the desire of legal clinics in Poland and Ukraine to reduce communication barriers, create a platform for exchanging practical experience of students and teachers. We are confident that the launch of the platform would facilitate access to justice for the citizens of our countries,” says Pawel Klimek, legal counsel, civil counsel, forensic mediator.
Platform structure:
Home. The homepage, containing a brief overview of the tasks of the platform, the KyivLEPP project. There is also data on the team to have worked on the project.
Common cases and research. Joint cases of Ukrainian and Polish legal clinics. On this page, you can work jointly on cases (without using personal data).
Clinics. Information on Ukrainian and Polish legal clinics. The page is created for acquaintances, communication, viewing cases, searching for interests, fields of work and contacts.
Directory. Page to track people who are registered on the platform.
Wiki. “Internal Wikipedia” of the platform. These are effective approaches and knowledge that should be stored for other legal clinics. You can add inspirational materials here.
Reading List. Space for interesting materials. This page can be filled with an unlimited number of resources that legal clinics consider useful.
Event Calendar. Calendar of upcoming events of legal clinics.
Research resources. These are various resources, databases and knowledge bases of different organizations and states. In particular, resources to assist the work of a lawyer on a daily basis (court register, etc.).
How to run a clinic template. A page with templates to improve the work of the legal clinic, which can be simply copied and used in the work (examples of templates of the legal clinic of the Ukrainian Catholic University).
“The creation of a joint communication platform will allow legal clinics in Ukraine and Poland to cooperate in real time: to conduct joint training events, to organize competitions, to provide consultations and to work together to resolve cases,” emphasizes Yulia Lomzhets, Head of the Association of Legal Clinics of Ukraine.
Rules for using the platform
The international platform is behind the link.
To register on the platform, you need to create an account with Notion.
How to create an account in Notion:
- Follow the Notion link.
- Enter your email and press Sign up.
- Click Continue with email. Notion emailed you with the code, enter it in the field Sign up code. We are approaching the finish line. A little more.
- Click Create a new account, enter your name and make up a password.
- Choose how to use: For myself (free) or With my team.
- Congratulations, now you have an account in Notion.
The platform was developed within the framework of the Kyiv Legal Empowerment Practical Program (KyivLEPP2020), implemented by the Ukrainian School of Practical Knowledge on Access to Justice with expert and financial support of the Human Rights and Justice Program of the International Renaissance Foundation.