Legal assistance nearby: how the Legal Development Network protects the rights of Ukrainians

Publication date: March 2, 2026

Author: Yuliia Bilyk, Communications Manager, Legal Development Network

The Legal Development Network is strengthening its human rights expertise, building new partnerships, expanding its client base, and improving its online services in line with user needs. By the end of 2025, lawyers from the LDN, member organizations, and partner organizations had provided over 277,000 free legal consultations. This made it possible to provide legal assistance to nearly 169,000 citizens in Ukraine and abroad.

Legal counseling in communities

Lawyers from member organizations of the Network work in most regions of the country. In addition to receiving citizens in their offices, they periodically travel to communities far from large cities. In many cases, on-site consultations are a lifeline for people who, due to financial difficulties, health conditions, or family circumstances, have no other way to obtain professional legal assistance.

In the last six months of 2025 alone, free on-site consultations in communities were provided to about 5,100 people. Almost 44% of them are internally displaced persons, the rest are veterans, their family members, military personnel and their relatives, people with disabilities, low-income people, pensioners, etc.

Lawyers also conduct informational and educational events, where they explain human rights and how to exercise them in simple language. From June to December 2025, a total of 1,384 participants took part in 72 such events organized by the LDN. The Network owes its ability to continue this work to the international charitable platform GlobalGiving.

“The lawyers of the Network’s member organizations are well-known in their communities. They have already helped many people resolve legal issues that had been unresolved for years, and they continue to do so,” notes Director of Legal Services Development at the LDN Dariia Kovalchuk.

LDN’s online services

For people who are unable to consult lawyers directly, the Legal Development Network’s online legal assistance services and hotline are available.

The LDN website ldn.org.ua offers two ways to obtain legal assistance: via online chat and the multi-channel LawLink Bot with artificial intelligence.

If you choose the first option, you will be connected with a professional lawyer. The second option provides a database of quick answers to questions on the most relevant topics. At the same time, lawyers are also involved in the work of LawLink Bot when in-depth explanations are needed.

The chatbot operates 24/7. Online chat lawyers are available from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily. Questions left in the chat outside of working hours are processed in order of priority during working hours.

Online chat: 1,576 consultations per year

In 2025, 1,477 people used the online chat service. Some of them returned to the chat several times with new questions or clarifications. In total, online chat lawyers provided 1,576 consultations.

“Last year, our online chat got a modern interface, a database of ready-made templates for quickly resolving typical legal issues, the ability to send documents directly in the chat, and save the history of dialogues for further recording and analysis. This has made it a truly effective and accessible tool for free legal aid, helping people resolve their issues quickly and conveniently,” emphasizes Legal Services Manager at the Ministry of Justice Lyudmila Vlasenko.

Among the most common topics of online chat inquiries are:

• military registration and mobilization;
• grounds for dismissal from military service;
• financial assistance in the event of the death of a serviceman, as well as in cases of capture or disappearance without trace;
• social payments and benefits for various categories of citizens;
• compensation for property destroyed or damaged as a result of the war;
• registration of status and access to social services for internally displaced persons;
• housing and communal services and energy supply.

Currently, 11 lawyers work in the online chat.

“Our goal is to provide access to legal protection to more people, especially those who are unable to physically come to an access point and receive assistance. The growth in the number of clients will require more lawyers. Here, our partners, with whom we already have preliminary agreements, will come to our aid,” notes Dariia Kovalchuk.

Chatbot: 925 consultations and new topics

In 2025, LawLink Bot was integrated with the Network’s online chat. Automated consultations are combined with the possibility of involving a professional lawyer. To interact with the chatbot, you can choose the web version or your favorite messenger. According to last year’s data, users most often prefer web chat, Telegram, and Viber.

Initially, the chatbot’s knowledge base contained four thematic areas: compensation for damaged or destroyed property, alimony payments, land leases, and inheritance issues. At the end of 2025, two more topics were added: family issues and the protection of IDP rights. By the end of 2025, the chatbot had provided 925 legal consultations. Of these, 398 concerned inheritance issues, 204 concerned compensation for destroyed/damaged property, 158 concerned alimony payments, and 128 concerned land leases.

The LawLink Bot knowledge base is constantly being updated. Over time, it will be ready to satisfy an even wider range of requests. Currently, it is already capable of automatically generating applications for court orders for the recovery of child support.

“The document is prepared step by step after the user provides the necessary information. In the future, we plan to supplement and expand the chatbot’s functionality, in particular by adding new document templates,” notes Lyudmila Vlasenko.

Assistance for Ukrainians abroad

For Ukrainians who have left the country due to the war and are currently abroad, there is a separate platform — Pravoman. Developed by the Network in collaboration with the American company Paladin and the Ukrainian NGO Legal Innovations (LinGo) in 2022, the platform has reached 309,025 unique users in four years, providing them with 1,328,962 consultations.

Pravoman provides round-the-clock consultations via web chat on its website and chatbots on Telegram, Facebook, and Viber. Over the past year, 67,476 unique users have turned to the platform, receiving 160,657 free legal consultations. 34.7% of requests came from Poland, 25.8% from Canada, 14.5% from Spain, and 7.3% from the United Kingdom. The most frequent inquiries were about taxation, employment, housing rental, obtaining status abroad, and financial support.

According to Dariia Kovalchuk, Pravoman is also set for an update in 2026. Developers are currently researching user requests in order to update the information on the platform accordingly.

Hotline

To provide legal assistance to residents of de-occupied communities in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, the Legal Year Network has opened a hotline at 0800 331 113. Clients are advised by lawyers from the Link platform. Telephone communication provides access to justice in settlements that cannot be reached due to the danger of shelling, as well as in areas where there is no or unstable internet coverage.

In 2026, the Network plans to involve lawyers from member organizations in the hotline. This will make it possible to receive legal assistance from the LDN in the form of a telephone conversation not only in the south, but also in any region of the country.

Regardless of the method of contact, each client can be confident in the high quality of assistance received from the Legal Development Network. Whether it is an instant response via the 24/7 LawLink Bot with artificial intelligence, professional advice in an online chat, a call to the hotline, or a personal meeting with a lawyer during a visit to the community, the level of professionalism remains unchanged. The Network ensures the highest level of service quality across the non-governmental sector as a member of the working group on the development of uniform basic standards for legal aid, which operates within the UNHCR Protection Cluster.

Отримайте поглиблену консультацію через чатбот LawLink

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