March School for Legal Clinic Supervisors: Adapting Legal Clinic Work to Wartime Challenges

From 26 to 28 March 2026, the Ukrainian Catholic University hosted the March School for Legal Clinic Supervisors, titled “An Effective Legal Clinic in Wartime: Development and Management Programme.” The School brought together more than 25 representatives of legal clinics from higher education institutions across Ukraine — professionals with diverse backgrounds but shared questions about how legal clinics can effectively operate in the current context. The event provided an opportunity to exchange practices, rethink approaches to legal clinic management, and identify solutions that can be applied in everyday work.

About the Programme

The March School was the first stage of the professional development programme for legal clinic supervisors organised by the Association of Legal Clinics of Ukraine (ALCU) in partnership with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.

The programme comprises 90 hours of learning and includes three interconnected components: the March School, the thematic May School, and a Scientific Forum. It is designed to strengthen the capacity of legal clinics to operate effectively under martial law by combining training, case-based learning, and analytical reflection. The programme enables participants to exchange experiences, explore new approaches to legal clinic work, and adapt them to their

Three Days of Intensive Learning

The March School programme was built around the key areas of legal clinic work, ranging from management and organisational processes to client interaction, ethical decision-making, legal education, and communication. Throughout the three days, participants focused not on an “ideal model” of a legal clinic but on the realities of daily work, with its constraints, challenges, and constant need to balance competing demands.

One of the central themes was the role of legal clinics and the questions they face in everyday practice: how to combine educational objectives with the provision of legal assistance, how to build and support an effective team, and how to respond to the limitations imposed by the wartime context. A recurring message throughout the discussions was that the effectiveness of a legal clinic begins with a clear understanding of its purpose and the value it creates for students, clients, and educational institutions alike.

Considerable attention was devoted to organisational issues that often remain behind the scenes. This thematic session was led by representatives of the UCU Legal Clinic — its Head, ALCU Board Member Khrystyna Kovtsun, and Clinic Supervisor and ALCU expert Marta Tsymbala. They shared their experience of establishing effective document management systems and demonstrated how technology can support these processes.

The discussion focused on highly practical matters: how to organise casework and events to ensure that information is not lost, how to distribute responsibilities within a team, and how to build processes that do not depend on a single individual. Participants examined specific tools, assessed their applicability to different institutional contexts, and discussed how such solutions function under varying circumstances. One important conclusion emerged clearly: technology does not replace supervisors, but it changes their role, making it more managerial and requiring a systemic understanding of the clinic’s overall operations.

Another session focused on ethics. While ethical principles may seem familiar within the clinical environment, they often require renewed reflection. During a thematic discussion led by Yuliia Matvieieva, Head of the NaUKMA Legal Clinic and ALCU Board Member, participants explored situations that do not have straightforward answers: when a legal clinic may refuse assistance to a client, where the boundaries of student responsibility lie, and how clinics should cooperate with other legal aid providers. The discussion gained an additional dimension through the topic of artificial intelligence. Some of the most engaging conversations revolved around how AI can be used in a way that enhances legal clinic work without replacing the learning process itself.

“The session ‘Ethical Standards of Legal Clinics: From Confidentiality to the Use of AI’ particularly resonated with me. It clearly demonstrated that the classical principles of legal ethics remain relevant, but in the digital age they take on new meaning. Confidentiality, integrity, and responsibility are no longer only about people — they are also about the technologies we use,” commented Valentyn Pidhorodetskyi, participant of the School and Head of the Legal Clinic Training Laboratory at the State Tax University.

 

Client interaction was another key component of the School. Liudmyla Rudenko, Head of the Sumy State University Legal Clinic and ALCU Board Member, shared her experience in this area. Participants discussed how to teach students interviewing and counselling skills, how to prepare them for working with different categories of clients, and how to help them feel confident in challenging situations. The discussion covered both general principles and practical approaches that help structure client conversations, clarify legal issues, and maintain focus when working on cases.

This conversation was complemented by a session on the psychological dimensions of legal clinic work. ALCU expert Mariia Tsypiashchuk spoke about the ways in which psychological knowledge can be integrated into legal clinic activities. Particular emphasis was placed on trauma-informed approaches and the ways in which the experience of war affects how people communicate, react, and make decisions. For legal clinics, this means building interactions more carefully — without pressure, without expectations of “correct” reactions, and with sensitivity to each person’s circumstances and experiences.

Attention was also paid to the well-being of legal consultants themselves. Participants discussed how to manage workload, maintain resilience, and recognise the importance of their own emotional state. Mariia highlighted the risk of secondary traumatisation, which can arise when consultants regularly work with difficult and emotionally demanding stories.

“The sessions on document management and the psychological aspects of legal clinic work attracted my attention the most. The first provided practical tools for organising everyday operations, while the second offered valuable insights into human behaviour in general and within the specific context of legal clinic work,” noted Serhii Stepanov, participant of the School and Deputy Head of the Legal Clinic at Donetsk State University of Internal Affairs.

Another important area of legal clinic activity — legal education and public outreach — was also included in the programme. Participants explored different formats and approaches, discussing how to make educational activities meaningful while maintaining audience engagement. During her session, Mariia Tsypiashchuk focused on interactive methods and on preparing students to work with diverse target groups. In addition to discussing the format of legal education activities, participants explored their internal logic: how to structure interaction, maintain momentum, and respond to unexpected situations during sessions. They also had an opportunity to test selected methods in practice and observe how they function in real educational settings.

Natalia Sheludiakova, ALCU Communications Manager, invited participants to conduct a mini-audit of their own communication practices by reflecting on why their clinic communicates, with whom, in what language, and through which channels. This approach encouraged participants to view communication as an integral part of everyday clinic work — one that affects access to legal assistance, builds trust, and shapes how visible and understandable the clinic’s work is to different audiences.

“Relevant topics, real-life cases, and discussions about possible directions for the development of legal clinics are only the tip of the iceberg. The true strength of the March School lay in its speakers, for whom presenting for the sake of presenting is unacceptable. Their goal was to explain, listen, and genuinely engage with every participant. This unity between the audience and speakers, their flexibility in discussion, and their ability to adjust sessions in response to participants’ interests created an exceptional level of engagement from the first minute to the last,” commented Pavlo Shvedenko, participant of the School and Head of the De Lege Lata Legal Clinic at Poltava State Agrarian University.

Outcomes

The March School was far more than a collection of ready-made solutions. Instead, it helped participants break down their work into distinct components and view it in a more structured way. Throughout the discussions, legal clinic supervisors repeatedly returned to fundamental questions that are not always explicitly addressed: how to balance education and client services in practice; what helps sustain teams in conditions of limited resources; how interactions with people affected by war are changing; and where technology genuinely supports effectiveness rather than merely creating its appearance.

This exchange of experiences enabled legal clinics to identify both their strengths and areas for improvement, while also formulating concrete steps for future development. Equally important, it helped participants realise that they are not facing these challenges alone.

This sentiment is reflected in participants’ feedback:

“These few days at the March School became something much greater than training for me. It was an experience that reshaped my understanding of how a legal clinic should function in an era of constant change and challenges. I returned home with numerous ideas that we are already planning to implement in our Legal Education Centre. Most importantly, I came away with the feeling that we are not alone — that there is a community thinking, feeling, and acting in the same direction,” said Viktoriia Orel, participant of the School and Supervisor of the Pravova STUDiYA Legal Centre at Poltava University of Economics and Trade.

“Life sometimes brings events that inspire us to move forward and strive for new achievements. For me, the March School for Legal Clinic Supervisors was exactly such an event. It helped me structure the knowledge I already had and outline future directions for the development of the NUS Legal Clinic. This was not an abstract exercise — the practical and well-reasoned advice provided by the speakers helped us develop clear algorithms for improving the clinic’s work under martial law. Another valuable aspect was the opportunity to establish closer connections with colleagues. Exchanging experiences in an informal atmosphere reminded us that we are not alone. There are opportunities for cooperation, networking, and learning from each other’s positive experiences,” commented Iryna Dmytruk, participant of the School and Head of the Legal Clinic at Admiral Makarov National University of Shipbuilding.

We thank all participants for their active engagement and willingness to work together on solutions and future developments for Ukrainian legal clinics. The next stages of the programme — the May School and the Scientific Forum — will continue this work and further develop the ideas and initiatives launched during the March School.

The programme is part of the project “Strengthening the Institutional Capacity of Ukrainian Legal Clinics to Provide Legal Aid, Promote Human Rights, and Advance Legal Education in the Context of European Integration.” The project is implemented within the framework of the Human Rights Infrastructure for Ukraine (HRIU) Programme (2025–2027), funded by the Government of Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and implemented by the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, with the Association of Legal Clinics of Ukraine serving as an implementing partner.