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War-Tested, Future-Ready: Inside Ukraine’s Legal Market
Research 2025
Welcome to the twenty-second edition of Ukrainian Law Firms. A Handbook for Foreign Clients — a long-standing legal market research project that now covers the period of 2024, a time deeply shaped by russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This edition reflects the turbulent third year of full-scale war in Ukraine, with research focused on legal responses to war-related challenges — including military law, defense procurement, sanctions compliance, war crimes prosecution, and legal aspects of mobilization, reconstruction, and international cooperation.
In response to the evolving legal landscape and the uneven impact of the war on firms and individuals, we continue to list firms and individuals alphabetically in the Market Landscape – Rankings section. This decision ensures analytical accuracy, especially given the absence of some strong players who could not participate due to various circumstances.
One important methodological development this year is the refinement of the Advanced Practices category for a number of substantial practice areas. This updated category was introduced to more accurately recognize firms that are actively involved in major projects and consistently demonstrate strong capabilities — even if they are not yet in a position to occupy undisputed market leadership positions. These firms are marked by growing visibility, sophisticated expertise, and diverse client mandates.
The Other Established Practices category remains in place to reflect firms with a steady track record of performance and demonstrated team capabilities.
The Authorities category continues to spotlight top-level individuals whose influence and recognition are rooted in longstanding reputations and strategic roles within their firms — even if their project involvement is now more limited.
The Celebrated Practitioners category responds to market feedback by recognizing seasoned professionals with decades of consistent practice and market visibility.
Our research methodology continues to rely on a combination of detailed submissions, publicly available information, and an extensive series of in-depth intervwies with legal experts. Findings from many of these interviews were published in the form of Key Insights by experts on our LinkedIn page. These reflections serve to document how legal professionals are adapting their work and expertise to the extreme conditions of wartime and contributing to the understanding of broader sectoral trends.
We continued to track and systematize publishable deals across submissions and open sources. Please refer to Tables 1–3 for details. Additionally, our Who is Who surveys include available updates on promotions, team movements, and departures, which were particularly dynamic in the current environment.
Our research team, which is based in Kyiv, worked through the realities of air raid alerts, blackouts, and ongoing operational stress. This lived experience has informed a more nuanced and grounded analysis of the market and further deepened our commitment to documenting and supporting Ukraine’s legal community during one of the most difficult periods in its modern history.
Legal Sector Trends and Adjustments
In 2024, the Ukrainian legal market continued to function under the immense pressure of russia’s full-scale invasion. Despite enduring trauma and uncertainty, the legal sector demonstrated a growing capacity for adaptation, behavioral shifts, and forward-looking engagement. The legal community increasingly positioned itself not only as a service provider but also as a strategic partner in Ukraine’s defense, resilience, and international cooperation.
Shifting Focus: From Survival to Strategic Planning
While the first two years of war demanded rapid adaptation and legal crisis management, 2024 marked a period of relative stabilization in professional operations and broader strategic recalibration. Law firms no longer viewed their activity solely through the lens of war survival. Instead, many redirected their resources toward enabling clients’ longer-term resilience, including cross-border business continuity, outbound investment, asset protection, and positioning for reconstruction projects. Legal services were increasingly aligned with Ukraine’s evolving institutional, military, and economic priorities — including international donor cooperation, defense procurement, and alignment with EU legal frameworks.
EU Candidacy and Compliance-Driven Practices
Ukraine’s EU candidate status became a significant driver of legal work in 2024. The push to implement EU legal standards and regulatory convergence — particularly in public procurement, antitrust, environmental law, and digital markets — translated into a new wave of advisory demand. Ukrainian and international clients sought legal guidance to adapt to evolving compliance obligations. Firms invested heavily in regulatory practices and legal tech tools that could offer scalable support for transparency and due diligence.
In particular, the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) introduced a reformed and more transparent approach to merger control and market investigations, catalyzing demand for sophisticated competition law advice. Legal teams operating at the intersection of public-private cooperation increasingly expanded their focus to EU funding mechanisms, grant implementation, ESG policies, and sanctions compliance.
War-Related Expertise Institutionalized
Many practices that emerged ad hoc in 2022–2023 due to wartime necessity — such as military law, sanctions advisory, or compliance with defense procurement regulations — have become more institutionalized. Some firms established permanent military and security-related desks, offering multidisciplinary advice on conscription, personnel deployment, and liability for war-related actions.
Additionally, law firms began to play a more formal role in the prosecution of war crimes, elaborating transitional justice mechanisms, and reparations frameworks. Cooperation with NGOs, international institutions, and Ukrainian state bodies has expanded, as the legal infrastructure needed to address crimes against humanity and civilian infrastructure grows more formalized.
Internal Market Rebalancing and Talent Dynamics
One of the most notable internal developments was the growing competition for qualified legal talent. The market continues to suffer from a war-induced brain drain, including relocation abroad, service in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or professional burnout. At the same time, a new generation of lawyers with international education and crisis management experience is gaining prominence, particularly in law firms that prioritize flexibility and international partnerships.
Many legal teams strategically grew their litigation, international arbitration, and white-collar defense capabilities, reflecting the market’s demand for complex dispute resolution services involving both domestic and foreign jurisdictions.
There is also a visible trend of smaller, agile law firms and boutique practices gaining recognition for their niche expertise and responsiveness, especially in areas such as compliance, IT/IP, and regulatory affairs. These players are sometimes better equipped to operate under conditions of volatility and rapid change.
Client Relations: From Reactive to Preventative Counsel
Notably, the ongoing war has reshaped how clients engage legal services. Large corporate clients continue to retain trusted counsel with strong crisis management skills and deep sectoral expertise. However, public institutions and civil society actors have become more prominent clients in legal work related to human rights, anti-corruption, and transitional justice—demanding pro bono or hybrid fee arrangements.
Another clear shift is the transformation of legal counsel from reactive support to strategic co-piloting. Law firms are now expected to not only handle transactions or litigation, but to foresee risks, interpret geopolitical and regulatory shifts, and help clients to build up legal resilience. This trend is most visible in practices advising on sanctions, asset tracing, and war-related property destruction — where strategic foresight and international coordination matter as much as technical accuracy.
Rise of Cross-Practice Collaboration
Complex legal needs in a wartime economy have also triggered more integrated, cross-practice collaboration. For example, projects involving reconstruction funding often require joint input from real estate, finance, public procurement, litigation, and compliance teams. This has encouraged more matrix-style internal structures and collaborative client teams within law firms.
Digitalization and Legal Tech Adoption
Digitalization continued to reshape legal practice in Ukraine, with courts expanding their e-document flow and firms increasingly relying on AI tools for document review, case research, and knowledge management. International clients in particular demand tech-enabled service delivery, accelerating investments in automation and client-facing platforms. Some forward-looking Ukrainian firms have adopted generative AI tools to assist in pitch generation, drafting letters and press releases, and internal knowledge databases, while also exploring the legal and ethical risks associated with such technologies.
Reputation, Impact, and Visibility
In an environment where trust and resilience have become defining qualities, reputational capital — both domestic and international — became more valuable than ever. The legal community’s role as both a service provider and societal actor is likely to deepen — particularly in areas of justice reform, accountability for war crimes, and safeguarding the rule of law. Ukrainian firms have proven their capacity to operate under extreme pressure; now, the task is to channel this resilience into long-term transformation. As the country moves from survival to strategic rebuilding, the legal profession will remain a critical pillar of Ukraine’s democratic and economic future.