The new application “Paralegals” will simplify the activity of community advisers of Ukraine in solving legal issues

Publication date: December 9, 2022

Mobile application “Paralegals” – help and knowledge base for community advisers of Ukraine

In Ukraine, the paralegals are an important mechanism that removes obstacles to access to justice and expands opportunities to solve a large number of legal requests and problems of citizens. How does it work in practice? When a person needs “primary” legal assistance, he or she can turn to a paralegal – a community advisor in a village or town. In turn, the community adviser carefully studies the legal problem and advises, providing information that will help the person to solve it on his own, or redirects to a competent service or institution.

However, such a standard approach in the work of a paralegal involves certain difficulties, in particular, when searching for an answer to a citizen’s legal request in the conditions of regular changes in national legislation, and, accordingly, in the algorithms for solving typical legal problems, especially when the country is at war.

In order to eliminate such obstacles, a number of Ukrainian civil society organizations decided to introduce a tool that would effectively support the work of paralegals. The idea of creating such a technological solution appeared in June, and already in October of this year, the mobile application “Paralegals” was launched in Ukraine, which greatly facilitates the work of those who provide basic legal assistance.

The application was jointly developed by the Ukrainian Legal Aid Foundation, the Coordination Center for Free Legal Aid Provision, Ukrainian Paralegal Association, the Department of Human Rights Compliance of the National Police of Ukraine, iDev – Innovation Development, Vasil Kisil & Partners with the support of the Mott Foundation.

«When there is a need to resolve a legal issue, I, as well as my friends and relatives, try to find the least painful way. Going to the lawyer is easy to compare with going to the dentist, although I know that this is pure superstition. But the reality is that we first ask friends, acquaintances, relatives, and only then, when there is no other way out, we go to a professional. Professional services are not free, so this is also a valid argument to ask if it can be made easier somehow.

The experience of Ukraine and Ukrainians after the start of Russia’s armed aggression in 2014 shows that it was social workers, volunteers, and activists who became leaders in solving people’s problems. In the legal aspect of these knights of integrity, we call them paralegals — they are people on the ground without a legal education, but with some experience that allows them to solve situations with violations of rights. To facilitate the work of those who help others, we have developed the mobile application “Paralegals”, – as Mykola Sioma, director of the all-Ukrainian charitable organization Ukrainian Legal Aid Foundation”.

The new mobile application provides access to unique features created for the convenient work of Ukrainian paralegals. Its functions include:

• Knowledge base with algorithms for actions in complex cases, which are relevant during martial law.
• Important news from the volunteer and paralegal community. And also — announcements of educational programs and courses.
• Information support for communities of paralegals and volunteers.
• The ability to redirect the client to specialists of the free legal aid system directly in the application.

In addition to paralegals, who will be able to receive free legal assistance for their clients directly in the application, the application will also be useful for people who are interested in current algorithms for actions in complex legal cases: obtaining benefits, certificates, statuses, inclusion in registers, solving family and labor issues rights, etc., as well as for volunteers to solve the most typical legal problems.

«Now the application is access to a platform where some paralegals help others in a peer to peer format. Here, paralegals describe decision algorithms for legal cases that they have encountered in their practice. They also receive important news from colleagues and have the option of redirecting clients to specialists of Free Legal Aid right in the application.

The main task of the Ukrainian Legal Aid Foundation for 11 years has been to provide citizens with equal access to justice — so that neither social status, nor belonging to any group, nor stereotypes could prevent Ukrainians from getting legal aid. And the “Paralegals” application is a significant step on the way to this goal», – Mykola Sioma emphasizes.

Representatives of the Ukrainian Paralegal Association are working on filling out the “Knowledge Base” section, which contains detailed algorithms for solving legal issues. From their own experience, they described how to act in certain situations and what recommendation to give to citizens. This approach makes the mobile application unique, because it allows you to share and exchange successful practices and algorithms of community advisers from all over Ukraine.

«In the conditions of a full-scale war in Ukraine, we must react quickly and keep fighting on all fronts. Therefore, the very creation of the application “Paralegals” gives an opportunity to  get an answer to an important question quickly and also to instantly redirect the request to qualified lawyers. Community advisers have a lot of experience in helping to solve a wide range of legal issues, and the application itself made it possible to organize and distribute them so that everyone has the answer to all questions in their phone, because all cases are tested and really implemented and should be used without thinking and checking.», – Hanna Ilashchuk, head of the Ukrainian Paralegal Association.

From the “Paralegals” application, you can find out legal information relevant in war conditions regarding the provision of assistance to internally displaced persons, documenting war crimes in Ukraine and receiving compensation for damaged property, humanitarian aid, as well as action algorithms in matters of pension recalculation, issuing subsidies, social guarantees, collection of alimony and marriage, etc. This list of topics in the “Knowledge Base” is not exhaustive and is constantly supplemented and updated in accordance with legislative changes.

«All community advisors have different experiences gained while working in their communities. After all, the specifics of the adviser’s work depend very much on the region of living and working. And at the same time, we have many common problems that we face in our work. That is why it is very useful to have access to the treasury of experience of your colleagues. The application is very helpful for us in this. After all, all the cases developed by the advisers are collected there and you can use them at any convenient moment», – community adviser Nataliya Vasylenko notes.

«In general, the main value of the application for community advisers is the study of the positive experience of their colleagues and a clear algorithm of actions when solving any problematic issue. A special function of the application is a direct connection with the  free legal aid system – the possibility to redirect the appeal to a specialist of Free Legal Aid, who will already accompany the case and look for legal ways to solve it. This function greatly simplifies the activities of the paralegals, because previously it was necessary to visit the FLA offices physically. With the appearance of the “Paralegals” application, requests and problems of residents of Ukrainian communities will be solved more quickly and qualitatively», – community adviser Maryna Tsarapaeva says.

The mobile application is available for download in the AppStore and GooglePlay.

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