Mentoring as an impetus and opportunity for legal clinics

Publication date: August 4, 2025

Author: Yulia Bilyk, Communications Manager of the Legal Development Network

The mentoring program for 13 teams of legal clinics from seven regions is being implemented by the Legal Development Network as part of the project “Strengthening the capacity of legal clinics to provide people with access to legal services in Ukrainian communities”. Mentors, reputable human rights activists and public figures, are making efforts to ensure that by the end of 2025 the clinics will have improved their work and reached a new level of legal advice. In this article, we describe the objectives of the mentoring programs of the legal clinics of Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic National University and Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University.

In the project “Strengthening the Capacity of Legal Clinics for People’s Access to Legal Services in Ukrainian Communities”, the teams selected for participation chose mentors independently. The selection was based on the competencies and experience of the nominated mentors. The teams of the legal clinics of the National University of Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic (hereinafter referred to as Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic) and Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University (hereinafter referred to as BSNU) have as their primary goal the systematization and digitalization of processes, and therefore chose to work with mentor Marta Tsymbala.

Marta works at the intersection of law and technology. She says about herself: “I build bridges between the legal world and modern solutions.” Previously, Marta was a curator at the legal clinic of the Ukrainian Catholic University School of Law, developed the Association of Legal Clinics’ platforms for client inquiries and monitoring of legal clinics, has projects in Europe and the United States — she implements digital tools for teams, uses Notion, Coda, AI, so that lawyers have less routine and more time for new interesting projects.

“The legal clinics I work with have similar goals. The clinic of Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic kept all documents in paper form. Now our number one task is to implement electronic document management. Within a month of our cooperation, the team updated the legal clinic’s regulations and posted them on Google Drive. This is a big step forward. As for the BSNU clinic, the materials there are digitized, but they are striving to systematize the clinic’s processes and prepare the necessary document templates to be able to focus more deeply on solving clients’ issues,” says the mentor.

Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic has also taken on the task of improving the university’s website and creating a Facebook page for the legal clinic. After all, proper online presentation is a key necessity for both attracting clients and finding new partners.

“We are well aware that participation in the mentoring program is a complex and time-consuming process that requires a lot of effort. At the same time, for us, participation in the capacity building project is a fundamental option for mastering various aspects of legal clinic management, developing strategic thinking skills among interviewers, and ultimately achieving the main goal of providing people who have been most negatively affected by the war with professional free legal aid in Zaporizhzhia region,” emphasizes Ihor Shmarin, Head of the Legal Clinic of Zaporizhzhia Polytechnic, PhD in Law.

Marta Tsymbala points out that both clinics she is supporting are located in the South of Ukraine, i.e. close to the front line. Accordingly, the teams are interested in developing competencies in specific military issues, such as compensation for lost housing, restoration of documents, and calculation of payments for internally displaced persons.

“During our meetings, the team representatives emphasize the need to develop cooperation, in particular with local NGOs and authorities, to redirect client requests that clinics cannot handle, for example, due to lack of competence, and vice versa, to receive requests from partners that clinicians can handle,” says Marta Tsymbala.

Another common goal for legal clinics is to raise resources. According to Marta Tsymbala, the team of the BSNU clinic has all the possibilities to receive a grant and expand the network of partnerships in the near future.

“The Petro Mohyla National University Legal Clinic closely cooperates with the NGO ”Voice of Communities”. They are active and open and have a good understanding of the processes. They need to represent themselves and reach a new level. Therefore, the clinic team’s receipt of a grant and the establishment of several new partnerships with my assistance will be a minimum program for me as a mentor,” says Marta Tsymbala.

Yevhen Morokhovets, Chairman of the Board of the NGO “Voice of Communities,” adds that the team of the BSNU clinic is ready to optimize administrative and communication processes to reduce the workload of clinicians, as well as to become closer to clients and meet the challenges of the times: improving the quality and accessibility of legal aid, secure storage and processing of clients’ personal data.

“As a team, we are very pleased with the interaction with the mentor, her advice has already outlined certain areas in which we are developing implementation opportunities to achieve certain tasks, in particular in the field of digitalization of the legal clinic,” emphasizes Yevhen Morokhovets.

According to Marta Tsymbala, the clinic teams are proactive and immediately take her recommendations into account.

“This is not the case when you need to motivate, remind them to do something. The teams themselves know the areas that need to be improved in their work and make efforts to achieve change. We are constantly in touch — at any day and time, they can clarify something, ask in the chat room where we communicate. And online meetings are for discussing strategic issues,” says Marta Tsymbala.

The mentor expresses satisfaction with the progress of the support program and is confident that upon its completion, the legal clinics will become better versions of themselves. Moreover, Marta Tsymbala herself benefits from working with the legal clinics.

“I saw significant differences in the organization of processes and, at the same time, identified standard pain points, which are usually establishing contact with clients and case management. For myself, I also gained an understanding of the areas of legal clinics’ activities that can and should be systematized. This will be useful not only in my work in the project, but also outside of it,” says Marta Tsymbala.

Thanks to the mentor’s support, legal clinics are actively implementing positive changes in their work to start working with new strengths, approaches and teams at the beginning of the 2025 school year.

The material was prepared within the framework of the initiative “Strengthening the capacity of legal clinics for people’s access to legal services in Ukrainian communities”, implemented by the NGO “Legal Development Network” with the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Ukraine and with the  financial support from the Government of Denmark.

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