This Faculty has always been one of the most popular at Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University both among specialists and entrants. Another recognition was that our Faculty of Law ranked 14th among universities of Ukraine which train lawyers. What is the secret of success and what practical and theoretical methods are used in the educational process? We talked about this to the Dean of the Faculty of Law Anton Demchuk.
– Mr Demchuk, how do you manage to keep the bar high?
– What are we witnessing now? Many current statistical studies seem to suggest that lawyers are experiencing the labor market overflow. It is true that in every region there are faculties of Law of different levels. The question is, whether they all prepare the graduates for the relevant employment. Probably, not all of them. The same is with private educational establishments. Where successful graduates come from, there are entrants who want to apply. When the entrants see that our students get employed as judges, lawyers, prosecutors, this is an indicator of the quality of education.
In September this year our Faculty will celebrate the 29th anniversary of its establishment. During this time more than 50 people have got jobs and still work as judges, including judges of the Supreme Court of Ukraine, chairmen of the courts of appeal, city and district courts. There are a great number of judges in the administrative court. There are also many successful lawyers and notaries. And there are so many graduates who have become legal advisers to powerful companies that it is even hard to count them all.
Even in private talks my friends ask me to recommend one of the students. Just this week, I have got three requests of the type. We are trusted and valued. This is also a high praise.
The only thing I would like to increase is the number of state order places. Their number is really small. I am not talking about our University, it is about Ukraine in general. Once some institutions used to have 1000 state order places, now the enrollment is highly competitive. All entrants are listed in a single rating. Then the first thousand entrants get their state form placement where they have submitted their documents to. The rest of the entrants go to the paid form placement. For example, this year our competitive score for the state form was 192. This is a very high score, so according to this criterion, faculties of Law are only slightly inferior to medical ones.
– Let's talk about practical methods of teaching. We know that there has been opened the Laboratory for Mediation and Restorative Justice at the Faculty.
– This is a very timely and new direction, the work on which started more than three years ago. I learned about this field during my collaboration with Marie Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. We have a wonderful colleague Andrzej Korybski, with whom we agreed to work together in mediation.
In Poland mediation is extremely developed. This is a conciliation procedure between people who do not want to go to court. It accelerates the consideration of the case and reconciliation between the parties. We train mediators at our Faculty. We have provided a course for this, opened laboratories, and we have a certified mediator – Doctor of Law Nataliia Karpinska. She not only oversees this area, but also involves many professionals. That's why we work with the court, city council departments, psychologists and a large number of bodies involved in the reconciliation process.
Therefore, mediation is extremely relevant, especially since the legal act on mediation has recently been adopted. And this will be one of the professions that can be acquired at the Faculty of Law.
– The Laboratory for Studying the Problems of Combating Violence is no less important.
– When we opened it, we hoped for positive outcomes and development in this direction. However, we did not expect such a development of this issue in Ukraine. It is very good that it has entered such an information orbit. Our laboratory is represented not only by methodical recommendations, but also by cooperation with practitioners. These are the “Polina” special unit, juvenile police, juvenile prevention, justice department, prosecutor's office, and police. It is about working to detect, prevent and maintain close contact with people who suffer from domestic violence. How to work with a child, how to work with a woman, how to work with the affected people? A lawyer should know this, because all these categories of people experience certain problems that are sometimes hidden.
The head of the laboratory is PhD in Law Zoriana Zaradiuk. We are currently working on another unit of this Laboratory, the green room. This is a room where children will be interrogated in the presence of a psychologist with the purpose of retrieving information in the form of friendly communication. It is necessary for the child to feel comfortable and be as frank as possible during the conversation.
– How relevant is the Laboratory of Digital Technologies in law?
– Today there are a lot of open digital registers in Ukraine. And we need to teach people to work with them. There are numerous so-called life hacks that most lawyers are unaware of. We have signed important memoranda with the “YouControl” company and the “PravoSud” platform. Such a partnership brings many benefits. With the help of access to “YouControl”, our students learn to get all the necessary information about the counterparty in full. And thanks to “PravoSud” – a huge analytical unit – they have an opportunity to determine which judge will consider the case and what possible verdict he will bring in.
Our laboratory is run by Nataliia Vozniuk. She has many certificates in digital technologies. This trend originated three years ago as a part of the new course “Legal Innovations”. This course has developed into a whole laboratory, where free online trainings take place, where students can get certificates for work in “Diia” («Дія»), “Google” and other services that use combinations of search queries. After all, even an extra quotation mark or a bracket when entering sometimes gives the opposite result of the search.
– Even students talk enthusiastically about the Forensic Laboratory.
– This is our super Laboratory, which we are powerfully developing, as we plan to license the specialty “Law Enforcement”. It is headed by Ihor Honcharov, a specialist in his field, a man who has dedicated a great part of his life to forensic investigations. We have developed the Laboratory to a large scale, and it is fully equipped. There are various training opportunities for students, including fingerprinting, testing grounds for investigation of car accidents, search for explosives (purchased equipment for minesweepers), crime scene inspection, where we always have a “corpse” and physical evidence. After inspecting the place, students make a report. By the way, at pre-quarantine all-Ukrainian Olympiads, representatives of our Faculty took the second and third places in drawing up the protocol. This indicates a high level of training.
We understand that new tools and methods could be added. However, not everything that is used in Europe is relevant in Ukraine. For example, odorology is a system of knowledge about odors and scientifically sound methods, technical means, recommendations for the detection, analysis, removal and storage of odor traces for further use in criminal proceedings. It is applied in the neighboring Poland, but is not in demand in our country.
– From the second part of the wonderful Latin proverb “Per Aspera Ad Astra” originated a wonderful Law Clinic “Ad Astra”. Please, tell us about the specifics of its functioning.
– It was one of the first in Ukraine. The Clinic is supervised by its permanent head Vitalii Yelov, a lawyer and a representative of the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in Volyn region. He is a man who has invested most of his life into the development of the “Ad Astra” Law Clinic. This is a fantastic internship opportunity for students, because a lawyer who hires a student as an assistant, becomes his mentor. The students have a chance to attend trials, to watch and listen. “Ad Astra” is also a courtroom where we simulate trials. A huge archive, formed since 1996, is at our disposal. Almost all graduates of the Clinic were later employed as lawyers or judges.
Currently, there are about 50 clinicians. They are involved in regular online meetings, presentations and counseling sessions. There are two laboratory assistants who enroll people for appointments. The students conduct a questionnaire, prepare a case, select the evidence, and then form a claim or a statement. But all this is happening only under the close supervision of mentors, who monitor strict compliance with the requirements. For the client, this process is a little longer, but free of charge and with the highest quality case preparation. Believe me, this is often much better than some lawyers can offer.
– Your works are about family disputes, storage contracts, economic modeling in a decentralized environment. And what is the favorite topic of lawyer Demchuk?
– I specialize in contracts, and I defended a thesis on this topic. It is a direction that is constantly being updated, especially in the current context of globalization. Earlier it was a signature and a wet seal that were required, and now a secure digital signature is enough for a contract.
There are other interesting topics. For example, protection of personal data, which sooner or later all companies will be obliged to do. Everything is changing. We used to read registers, codes, wait for publications in the “Governmental Courier” newspaper, and now everything is digitized; we can find not only analytics but also development trends. You need to be prepared for change, including online environment. Relatively recently we have started to use the term “franchising”, and in the United States it has existed since the founding of “McDonald's”. That is, we must always look for new topics. You can love something, but be focused on the relevance and trends in the field of law.
– Considering these fleeting changes, how do you see the Faculty of Law in 5 or 10 years?
– Law is always perceived as a classical science, and its representatives are imagined in expensive suits and nice cars. And when they say that the Faculty of Law is expensive, I argue that it all depends on how people feel about learning. There are unofficial recommendations, which we have studied and which we use nowadays, such as, you cannot come here in sweatpants and sneakers. Of course, there is no clear dress code, but our students must wear the appropriate form of clothing. This is self-respect and respect for the profession. That's why coming to the exam in shorts and flip-flops is not our option. At students’ request, I also wore a mantle and a trencher cap in the heat of +36 °C, and it wasn’t at all a big deal.
Now, how will the Faculty change? I think that nothing needs to be radically changed in the permanence of traditions. Today we work successfully and produce successful law graduates. You should agree that this is the top priority. It is important for me that in 10 years, our graduates will be still thankful to the Faculty of Law.
Only some specific things need changing or implementation, such as the creation of more up-to-date laboratories, or the enhancement of comfortable working conditions. I shall not make guesses as to so far as 10 years. But I can say that in 5 years, it will be the Faculty that will work closely with EU universities, because a lot of work is already being done.
And the latest achievements cannot but speak for themselves. We have ranked 14th among 250 institutions of higher education in Ukraine in the quality of bachelor's degree training. I believe that this high level testifies to our unconditional achievement as well.
Interview by Andrii SOBUTSKYI
