Job cuts and salary reductions have helped the Ukrainian legal services sector survive the Russian invasion, a new report has revealed.

External factors such as success, recognition and innovativeness have lost their importance but almost every second respondent deemed traits such as courage, bravery and confidence more significant.

Of the164 law firms operating in Ukraine who answered the survey, 38% had to apply cost-cutting measures such as cut-offs and 36% made reductions to lawyers’ salaries.

However, according to the data collated by Legal Talents, lawyers were compensated with bonuses and their ‘remuneration is fairly close to pre-war levels’.

Pro-bono and volunteer projects were also considered significant as was patriotism, with a clear pro-Ukrainian position, for every ninth respondent.

The most frequently referred to social initiatives included free consultancy for war-affected citizens, financial donations to the Ukrainian armed forces funds, volunteering and humanitarian activities and pro bono assistance to volunteers or charity funds.

As well as this, 83% of firms considered it ‘unacceptable’ to hold corporate parties and anniversaries while six out of 10 believed it inappropriate to sponsor legal conferences.

Of those asked, 46% thought it improper to use direct or contextual advertising while 44% thought it improper to sponsor business conferences.

The survey also asked firms about the challenges facing the Ukrainian legal market.

Customer-related concerns were considered the biggest challenge both in expanding into new markets, especially European; targeting new clients, with a particular focus on foreign clients; and retention of existing clients through in-depth involvement into business recovery and transformation.

Legal market risks included lawyer outflow, with migration not only to different countries but to other professions, the economic downturn in Ukraine and the lack of investments and cuts to legal spending.

While partners considered war escalation, further inflation and devaluation of the national currency, psychological pressure and a shortage of active clients and their focus on internal legal resources, as significant risks to their firm.

Drawing conclusions from the research, Legal Talents said: ‘The Ukrainian legal market has overcome the survival stage and entered the transformational point. The final destination is obvious for the market and its players: lawyers shell be extremely busy with an after-war revival. However, today no one is able to predict how many steps it will take.’

Topics