Ukrainian Legal Tech: successful cases and the impact of artificial intelligence
997788
Дмитро Казанцев
Дмитро має понад 5 років досвіду в журналістиці, пише SEO-тексти, а також статті про IT-бізнес, економіку, стартапи. Захоплюється наукпопом, джазом та кіно.
The United States is a pioneer in the implementation of Legal Tech solutions. In 1977, the first Legal Tech company, LexisNexis, was founded there and began to provide access to multidisciplinary databases. And in the early 2000s, the first startups that used IT to solve legal problems began to appear. Among these companies are Rocket Lawyer and LegalZoom, which provided and continue to provide services for creating dynamic documents, smart contracts, and legal advice.
Компанії LegalZoom та Rocket Lawyer є одними з найстаріших у Legal Tech
In general, the Legal Tech industry today combines various legal practices and digital technologies, creating both computer programs in the broad sense and offline and online mobile applications, chatbots, scripts, and search engines to improve the efficiency, speed, quality, convenience, and cost-effectiveness of solving certain legal tasks. As a result, this entails a reduction in the cost of legal services, as the main pricing factors in legal practice are the complexity of the work performed and the time spent on it.
There is an assumption that the term Legal Tech correlates with the term Legal Hack, with which the international movement of Legal Hackers is closely associated.
Міжнародний рух Legal Hackers об'єднує юристів, айтівців та вчених
This movement was born in 2011-2012 in America. It is a global community of lawyers, IT professionals, and scientists in more than 150 cities around the world who study and develop creative solutions to the most pressing problems at the intersection of law and technology. The community holds meetings, hackathons, and seminars to identify problems and opportunities where IT solutions can improve access to justice and adapt laws and legal practices to technology. In spring 2017, the Ukrainian community Kyiv Legal Hackers joined the movement.
Українська спільнота Kyiv Legal Hackers
The organization positions itself as the first Ukrainian chaperone and a part of the international community. Its members share experiences and build innovative solutions in the field of law.
If you recall the history of Legal Tech in Ukraine, it seems that for a long time there was a state monopoly, as the state had access to various registries and databases. But one of the first private services that comes to mind is probably one of the first private services - LegalTech, a tool for working with registries called LIGA:ZAKON. On the Internet, you can find information that back in 1992, Ukrainian scientists Serhiy and Maryna Bondarenko and Volodymyr Yehipko created the first version of this information and legal system, which contained data on laws and other regulations in force at the time. The information partner of the system was the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. The Windows version of the LIGA:ZAKON system was launched in 1995 and distributed via CDs. Today it is the well-known LIGA group of companies, which includes the Ligamedia media holding.
The world is currently witnessing the rapid development of this industry, which is also due to the introduction of AI in various spheres of life. Below is a list of the largest investments in Legal Tech projects over the past 10 years. Data from the famous legal journalist Bob Ambrogi.
In 2021, the global Legal Tech market showed solid revenues, reaching $27.6 billion. There is a positive growth trend in the market that will continue: the market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 4% by 2027.
Дані із сайту Statista
Europe and North America are important epicenters of innovation in Legal Tech, home to a variety of companies that are actively influencing the transformation of the legal market. Notable players are the United States and the United Kingdom, countries with a long history of legal services and a high concentration of technological innovation hubs.
Ukrainian projects and startups in the Legal Tech industry
According to a study by the NGO Legal Innovations, the Ukrainian legal tech market, despite its relative novelty, is showing rapid growth. According to experts, it could reach $100 million by 2025. Growth will require the industry to overcome a number of existing challenges, including improving the legal regulatory framework for artificial intelligence, increasing the level of trust in online services, adapting the legal profession to new conditions, and ensuring adequate funding for innovation.
Speaking of Ukrainian legal tech projects, I'd like to mention the most iconic ones first. For example, AXDRAFT, which was founded in 2017 by brothers Yuriy and Oleg Zaremba. It provides legal document automation services. In April 2019, the startup closed a $1.1 million funding round. As part of the round, it was valued at $10 million. In December 2020, AXDRAFT was sold to the international legaltech company Onit. The brothers left the startup and launched a new project, AISDR, which automates sales prospecting using generative AI.
The fate of the Ukrainian trademark registration service PatentBot was sad. It stopped working because of the war. It was previously estimated at $1.5 million. One of the most famous and successful is the Ukrainian project YouControl. It is an online analytical system for business intelligence, competitive intelligence, and counterparty verification. Sergiy Milman founded YouControl LLC in September 2014. Today, YouControl contains information from over 220 open data sources. The system creates a complete dossier for every company and individual entrepreneur in Ukraine. The Express Analysis scoring indicator analyzes the activities of companies based on nearly 600 factors, including current and historical ties to Russia, Belarus, and Iran. In 2024, the company celebrated its 10th anniversary.
The Opendatabot project is also popular among Ukrainians. This is a Ukrainian company that provides access to government data from the main public registers for citizens and businesses. It was founded in 2016 by Oleksii Ivankin, a programmer from Dnipro. It offers citizens debt and court notifications, data verification to protect against fraud, and vehicle and real estate checks. Various IT services are created on the basis of Opendatabot to protect companies from raider attacks, control contractors, and take care of employees.
In Ukraine, where there are a large number of military personnel and veterans, the development and implementation of legal tech products in this area has significant potential to make their lives easier and improve access to legal aid and support. Today, only a few such products exist:
The Armed Forces Attorneys project is a volunteer movement created at the initiative of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to provide legal support to military personnel and their families;
Legal Hundred is a public project aimed at providing free legal aid to citizens. As part of the project, volunteer lawyers and attorneys work to provide consultations, form a database of documents necessary to protect the rights of servicemen and their families, and defend their rights in court;
The Legal Development Network is a network of public cooperation of human rights organizations that provides legal aid to the population of Ukraine and creates a knowledge base for legal education. Help can be obtained through an online chat on the website.
According to the Legal Innovations NGO, there are 65 legal tech products in Ukraine, with businesses and individuals as their main customers. Many of these products focus on services to help create documents and analyze data from registries. Here is a complete list.
Airlaw Pro is a platform aimed at helping airline passengers receive their rightful compensation for flight delays, cancellations or rebookings, as well as in cases of damage and loss of luggage.
Legal Nodes is a marketplace that offers a network of diverse legal providers with transparent pricing and special offers for tech SMEs, allowing clients to choose the legal services that best suit their needs and budget.
AxDraft — is an all-in-one contract management platform that offers fully automated, mobile-friendly legal templates for drafting, approving, signing, and storing contracts, tailored to fit legal budgets. This project was originally started as a side project to simplify contract drafting through the use of templates in contracts.
Liga — is a business platform that provides various products and solutions in the field of law. Among them are the liga360 legislation monitoring system, the verdictum court decision analysis system, as well as the YURIST&ZAKON, BUKHALTER&ZAKON and IFRS Bulletin.
Monitor.Estate — is a service for automatic legal due diligence of real estate in Ukraine. It collects and analyzes data on the object and persons related to it, including information on construction participants, encumbrances and seizures of property, enforcement proceedings, court cases, developer permits, contractor licenses, and land use designation. The service offers legal advice, verification of financial schemes and contracts with developers, as well as due diligence of developers and real estate on the secondary market.
Grandma by OpenDataBot — is a service for quick search of court decisions and cases in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions of Ukraine (USRCD). It allows you to find decisions by various criteria: document type, case type, time period, instance, as well as by specific keywords or case number. The service is designed to provide users with a convenient tool for studying court decisions and transparency of the judicial process.
OpenDataBot— is a service that provides access to Ukrainian government data for citizens and businesses. Through the chatbot, users can check companies and individuals, monitor court cases, and check vehicles and real estate. For businesses, the service offers protection against raider attacks, monitoring important changes in counterparties, and checking sanctions lists.
Protocol — is an online marketplace for remote legal services and consultations in Ukraine. The service offers free legal advice, video calls with lawyers, organization of tenders for legal services, conclusion of electronic contracts, secure transactions where the lawyer's fee depends on the fulfillment of certain conditions, and a directory of lawyers to search for a lawyer according to certain criteria.
PravoMan — is a chatbot legal consultant that works 24/7 in all popular messengers. The service provides advice on a variety of legal issues, such as employment, renting a house, obtaining necessary documents, admission to higher education institutions for Ukrainians abroad, the tax system, etc. The chatbot also offers the creation of ready-made legal documents for signature. Pravomen also offers access to open data from all state registries to simplify the creation of documents.
Automation of internal processes and data dashboards from Bot&Partners - data structuring (helps to collect data from different sources and form them into a single dashboard, which facilitates quick information analysis and data orientation); routine automation (automating the team's administrative and operational processes with Notion, Coda, Google Sheets, Appsheet, Make, Pipe.bot, and Corezoid); document flow automation (including the generation of contracts, invoices, acts, integration with Vchasno, management of all documents, and dashboards for managers); order and budget management (the service helps organize the work of volunteers, receive customer requests, synchronize data, generate supporting documents, filter data, target allocation of funds by project and budget line, and generate, approve, and sign documents).
«Oblava bot» від компанії Bot&Partners — is an assistant bot that allows business owners to quickly contact their lawyers in case of an emergency or unexpected change in the corporate structure.
Demon Danylo — is an assistant bot from Bot&Partners that generates invoices for payment for services, goods, and works through the Wayforpay and Stripe payment systems.
Consultant — is a marketplace from PRIKHODKO & PARTNERS with services provided through the platform, including general legal advice, debtor protection, family matters, social issues, work issues, real estate issues, and migration issues. In addition, the app allows users to download legal and financial documents that have been created by experienced lawyers and are fully compliant with the law.
Bot Interrogation of a witness — is a computer program that provides instructions on how to act in specific legal situations. It was developed on the basis of algorithms created by a team of Sokolovskyi and Partners attorneys with 20 years of experience.
Bot Obshuk — is a computer program that provides instructions on how to act in specific legal situations. It was developed on the basis of algorithms created by a team of Sokolovskyi and Partners attorneys with 20 years of experience.
Bot Smartphone lawyer — is a computer program that provides instructions on how to act in specific legal situations. It was developed on the basis of algorithms created by a team of Sokolovskyi and Partners attorneys with 20 years of experience.
Bot DSNS check — is a computer program that provides instructions on how to act in specific legal situations. It was developed on the basis of algorithms created by a team of Sokolovskyi and Partners attorneys with 20 years of experience.
E-tender — is a platform for public procurement in Ukraine through the ProZorro system. It provides a convenient search for tenders and registration for participation in them in three steps.
Zakupivli.pro — is a platform where entrepreneurs can trade with the state. This website is an official participant of the Prozorro public procurement system in Ukraine. The platform features various tenders, and companies can register to participate in procurement, as well as announce a procurement. The website also offers Prozorro Market and Prozorro.Sale auctions. The platform also offers commercial procurement, auctions, all procurements, procurement plans and signed contracts.
Ukrainian Universal Exchange — is a platform that organizes electronic exchange trading, the sale of taxpayers' property held in tax lien, and the sale of ownerless and other property that has become the property of the state at auctions and exchange trading. UUB is also the official electronic platform of Prozorro public procurement and an accredited electronic platform of Prozorro.Sale.
Prozorro — is a Ukrainian public electronic procurement system that enables state, municipal and commercial organizations to conduct procurement in a transparent and efficient manner. The system provides access to procurement information, promoting healthy competition among suppliers and transparency in the use of public funds.
SmartTender — is the official electronic public procurement platform of Prozorro, which allows organizing auctions for the sale of property, holding tenders for the purchase of necessary goods and services, automating cash flows in the commercial and public procurement market, which reduces the human factor and eliminates related risks.
Easytender — is an online service from Pravoe Dilo Law Firm for preparing for tenders, which provides tender support, helping to increase the chances of winning. The service offers a quick review of tender conditions and the situation within 24 hours. It is available on any device at any time, guaranteeing reliability thanks to strong legal support.
FastDoc — is an online legal document builder that provides a convenient and secure method for creating personalized legal documents. The FastDoc website offers a large selection of legal documents, the initial templates of which were created by experienced lawyers. The templates cover most typical situations. To create a document, you need to fill out a questionnaire in the form of a form. The document is generated gradually before your eyes as a result of processing your answers in the questionnaire. After payment, you can download the created document in Word and PDF formats, or the document can be sent to the e-mail address you specified.
Fop-vs-employment-tax — is a chatbot assistant from Axon Partners that will help you figure out whether your contractors are similar to employees and whether you face penalties from the State Labor Service. Based on a questionnaire, the chatbot provides recommendations on how to register employees and permanent contractors, as well as explains the rules of inspection by the State Labor Service.
Iplex— is a platform that provides access to programs and databases of regulatory, judicial, and reference information. The platform is available on all popular operating systems, such as MacOS, Windows, Android, and iOS, and can run on a variety of devices, including personal computers, MacBooks, tablets, and smartphones.
Legal Alarm — is a service from Juscutum law firm designed to provide legal assistance at any time of the day or night. It is a mobile application for Android andiOS that allows users to seek legal assistance in cases of emergency in one click. The platform is designed for businessmen, entrepreneurs, politicians, media personalities, editors, journalists, travelers and anyone who is concerned about their own safety and the safety of their business.
OPENLEX — is a platform from Honcharuk and Partners law firm, created to provide a simple and accessible algorithm for finding investments for all categories of litigation. The process of financing litigation is carried out through the interaction between the Investor and the Claimant, who cooperate through the mediation of the best specialists in the field of law and finance, which significantly increases the chances of success in litigation.
Rent it Bot — is your legal assistant in the field of renting. The bot will prepare a lease agreement for you and provide advice on your rights as a tenant.
Pravosud — is a system for searching and analyzing court practice in Ukraine. The main functions include: search for court decisions, search for legislation, analysis of legal positions of the Supreme Court, analysis of judges' practice, analysis of contractors, and monitoring of court practice. The service allows users to quickly find the necessary documents, analyze statistical data on the consideration of cases, monitor the schedule of court hearings, and receive information on court cases and enforcement proceedings of counterparties. All this helps users effectively prepare for litigation and manage their legal activities.
theDoc — is a marketplace with the largest database of ready-made contracts in Ukraine - more than 600 contract templates for various occasions. Users can easily find the contract they need by entering a search keyword, such as "apartment lease agreement" or "employment agreement," and download it in one click. It is possible to select a contract from a list of popular ones or view all available contracts. The service aims to make the process of selecting and downloading a contract as easy as online shopping.
Vkursi.pro — is a big data platform that provides counterparty verification and business dossiers in Ukraine. It offers several products and services, including market analysis, event monitoring, property control, and analysis and monitoring of court decisions. Users can use the platform to search for companies, verify legal entities and individuals, and obtain information on real estate registration and property encumbrances.
YouControl — is a Ukrainian IT company that has been developing services based on open data for 10 years and is a market leader. Features of the brand's products:YouControl — is a comprehensive analytical system for business intelligence, compliance, business intelligence, and investigations. The system aggregates data from more than 220 reliable sources and creates a complete dossier for each Ukrainian company and individual entrepreneur, tracks changes and visualizes connections. Contains data for checking foreign companies. It allows you to get up-to-date information about an individual from official sources in a few seconds. With the help of YouControl's API integration, users can get a customized solution and automate most of the tasks related to counterparty verification and receive up-to-date data in the CRM system;YC.Market — is a tool for market analysis, customer and partner search. It is effective for developing new opportunities in B2B, monitoring newly established companies and individual entrepreneurs in Ukraine. It also implements the function of competitor analysis, market size and coverage research, and economic development of various regions and sectors;YC World — is an international platform for building and visualizing business relationships between companies and individuals from the CIS and the UK. The product contains 146+ million connections from 74 countries, including information on the relationship of counterparties with the Russian Federation and Belarus.
Zakon Online — is an analytical and legal system for searching and analyzing court practice in Ukraine, which provides access to decisions with legal positions, precedents of the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights, regulations, and information about court hearings.
Divorce.Online — is a service from Seleznyov & Partners Law Firm that allows you to file for divorce online by filling out a questionnaire on the website. After filling out the form, the user will receive a ready-made application for divorce and detailed step-by-step instructions. The documents are sent in Microsoft Word format.
Child support online — is a service from Seleznyov & Partners Law Firm that allows you to apply for alimony online by filling out a questionnaire on the website. After filling out the form, the user will receive a ready-made application for the recovery of alimony and detailed step-by-step instructions. The documents are sent in Microsoft Word format.
Access to the truth — The service allows users to send inquiries to information controllers. The process includes choosing who to address the request to, creating the request itself, sending it, and receiving a response. The service can be useful for obtaining public information from business entities or public authorities.
Court in the palm of your hand — is an analytical service that provides an opportunity to search, research and visualize court decisions in Ukraine. The service integrates data from the Unified State Register of Court Decisions with information from other open registers, which allows users to search all registers simultaneously and receive up-to-date statistics. This simplifies the work with registries, as there is no need to switch between tabs and reconcile information.
Lexberry — is an intellectual property management platform. This service automates routine processes, helps to avoid mistakes and missed deadlines, updates data from registers, and facilitates interaction with the applicant and the office. The platform offers the ability to maintain applications and registrations, file applications in a few minutes, monitor, maintain industrial designs, utility models, inventions, directly exchange documents with the office, synchronize data and statuses with official registers, template documents, time billing, generate reports, electronic document management, and record work with contractors. Designed for patent attorneys, law firms, trademark and patent owners, Lexberry automates annual patent renewals, reminds you of all important deadlines, and simplifies office work.
Lawyerd — is a service that automates copyright protection by providing product certification, 24/7 online monitoring to detect misuse of your work, and removal of any online infringements, providing you with a full report. The service offers intellectual property protection for startups, NFT projects, artists, and creators, helping to register rights quickly, easily, and affordably. The service also helps implement brand protection strategies, reducing costs and speeding up processes compared to traditional legal services.
Clarity Project — is one of the largest open data-based analytical platforms in Ukraine. It is also the only platform that offers users both advanced analytics of Prozorro public procurement and up-to-date data from more than 140 Ukrainian registries. Along with Prozorro's advanced analytics, Clarity Project users have access to up-to-date and structured data from 140 Ukrainian registers: data from the Unified State Register, the court register and the sanctions register, financial statements, company and individual relationships, enforcement proceedings, intellectual property of legal entities and individuals, construction permits, advanced analysis of public finances, etc.
ActiveLex — offers a number of products and resources for legal professionals. These include: LEX Lawyer Online Resource: a system of analytical tools for legal practice; LEX Bar Exam Answer Book; LEX Attorney Online Resource: a system of analytical tools for legal practice; LEX Notary Online Product: a specially designed workspace for notary practice; LexInform Information Portal: up-to-date legal news from Ukraine and the world; LexMart Legal Bookstore: an online store for lawyers with a wide range of professional literature; LEX.Military Lawyer is a new information and analytical product designed to provide lawyers of the Ministry of Defense and lawyers who protect the rights of military personnel with a convenient, reliable and up-to-date tool for analytical work.
UrbanData – is a resource that consolidates open and accessible data in the field of urban planning in Ukraine. The service offers a convenient search, analytics and the ability to check any urban development object, as well as detect illegal construction online. UrbanData also provides access to a register of certified urban development professionals, including experts, architects and design engineers. The service offers a number of services, including preparation and submission of various documents, analysis of refusals and recommendations on how to eliminate comments from the SACI.
UA fines — is an online service for paying traffic fines in Ukraine. It allows users to pay fines by the resolution number, receive an electronic receipt by email, and check and pay fines through a mobile application. In addition, the site offers the purchase of an electronic car insurance policy, where the user can calculate the cost, receive the policy by email and complete the purchase in less than 2 minutes. The service also reminds users to renew their motor insurance.
Povertay, which is offered by TAS Life, simplifies the process of obtaining tax rebates for customers who have purchased long-term life insurance policies (with a term of more than 5 years). With the help of the service, you can easily fill out and receive a PDF declaration of income, which is required for a tax rebate. The service is recommended for those who want to get a tax rebate without any hassle.
FinSkarga allows users to file complaints against financial institutions for violations in service, financial products, and fraud. The service offers the ability to file a complaint with the NBU, track the status of its consideration, and receive expert advice from a platform lawyer if the problem is not resolved. Consumers can also send an appeal to the NBU via the platform.
European Court Bot was created to help evaluate a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights against Ukraine, it is essentially a primary filter before filing with the European Court that can answer 60% of typical questions to a lawyer. The bot not only helps to assess the chances in the ECHR, but also offers a selection of materials related to the topic of the European Court and even provides an opportunity to sign up for a consultation with a lawyer. The bot's functionality includes an assessment of whether the complaint concerns the rights guaranteed by the Convention and whether the violation occurred before or after Ukraine ratified the Convention (11.09.1997). Ultimately, if it turns out that the European Court finds the complaint admissible, the bot offers video instructions on how to file a complaint on your own or gives you the opportunity to ask a lawyer a question.
Noty.ai is your working AI assistant that helps turn communication into specific tasks. This service offers automation of routine processes and makes meetings 100% efficient, allowing users to save up to two hours every day. founders are Ukrainians, registered in Portugal.
Lawyer E-Office software is aimed at automating legal processes, including client database management, automated calculations, teamwork, monitoring of court cases, access to the register of court decisions, document creation, analysis of operational and financial indicators, event planning, and integration with other technological solutions.
Zayava Online is a platform that allows you to file claims in Ukrainian courts online without a lawyer. Users can create applications for various legal issues, such as alimony, divorce, property division, and other petitions. All applications available on the platform are designed to take into account the specifics of Ukrainian legislation and court practice.
Taxer — is a platform for automating financial and legal processes that allows you to create and send electronic reports, pay taxes online, receive automatic reminders in the tax calendar, maintain online accounting, use an up-to-date knowledge base, and receive advice from professional lawyers and accountants.
Vchasno — The project is a series of digital solutions for businesses in Ukraine provided as SaaS (Software as a Service) services. Here are some of the main components of this project: the Vchasno electronic document management system; Vchasno.EDI, an internationally standardized product for automating and optimizing electronic document management; Vchasno.Kasa, a software-based electronic cash register that allows issuing fiscal receipts quickly and conveniently; Vchasno.QES, a service for issuing advanced electronic signatures with a high level of security; and integration with accounting systems.
Star.Docs by Kyivstar — is a modern system for electronic document management that allows you to create, approve and sign documents in digital format. With this service, you can replace paper documents with electronic ones and work with them online from any device at any time. Electronic documents created in Star.Docs have the same legal force as paper documents.
Signy is a platform for digital document management in Ukraine that enables quick registration, uploading the necessary documents for signature, such as contracts or certificates of completion, and their subsequent signing and sending using a digital signature. The service is available 24/7 from all devices and promises instant signing of documents without delays. Signy also offers the ability to create documents based on personal templates, customize the order of document signing for teams, easy integration with accounting programs and other services, and supports Mobile ID login.
Electronic document management (EDM) from Privat 24 offers a free solution for creating and exchanging documents 24/7, registering tax invoices in the Unified Register, B2B invoicing with the ability to issue invoices for payment for Ukrainian business partners, and provides information on tax payments.
Paperless — is an online service, Privat24 document management for exchanging and signing documents, which also offers accounting and electronic reporting. After registration, users can upload and sign documents with an electronic digital signature (EDS) and share them with others. The service provides free technical support 24/7.
Document.Online allows users to conduct electronic document management. The portal allows users to create, upload, sign and send documents, set up document routes, approve and reject documents, comment on documents, search for documents in the system, generate reports and send documents for additional approval. The service also allows you to perform actions with batches of documents, set up notifications in Telegram, and keep track of documents using your Derzhzakupivli.Online account.
Your right provides free legal aid in Ukraine. The project divides legal aid into primary and secondary. Primary assistance includes providing legal information, counseling, drafting applications and complaints, assistance in accessing secondary assistance and mediation. Secondary assistance includes defense, representation of interests in courts and other bodies, and preparation of procedural documents. Assistance is provided by state and local authorities, private individuals and specialized institutions. There is an application for iOS.
Paralegals app offers educational courses for paralegals, who will receive a certificate upon completion. The app has a knowledge base with case studies from practitioners, news from the professional community, the ability to contact FLA specialists directly in the app, and community support to help in any situation.
Pocket IP — is a Legal Tech startup, a platform for searching, documenting and managing intellectual property on a global scale, designed with the needs of lawyers and company management in mind. The service offers convenient one-stop intellectual property portfolio management by selecting selected lawyers from different jurisdictions based on their experience and expertise.
Trust Life offers online endowment life insurance with a 100% payout guarantee and investment returns of up to 22% per year. This service allows users to choose, calculate and pay for an insurance policy on one website, promising to process the application and send the insurance on the same day. Users can find more than 10 insurance policies from trusted companies specializing in life insurance. The service also offers round-the-clock support and individualized policy selection according to the user's needs and life plans.
The Principle Legal Navigator is designed to help military personnel and their families in Ukraine. This online platform offers tools for navigating various legal issues that may arise for servicemen and their families. The platform also provides step-by-step instructions for wounded soldiers, and downloads sample documents and reports, which simplifies the rehabilitation process for the military. The service provides answers to questions such as how to obtain a certificate of injury and what to do to receive financial assistance.
The Armed Forces Advocates project is a volunteer movement created at the initiative of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine to provide legal support to military personnel and their families. The project brings together volunteer lawyers who provide free qualified legal assistance. The project provides free legal services, with the possibility of applying through various means of communication, including a form on the website, Telegram and Viber chatbots, or e-mail. Servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, members of the TRO and DFTG, as well as their family members are eligible for free legal aid.
Legal Hundred — is a public project in Ukraine aimed at providing free legal aid to citizens. As part of this project, volunteer lawyers and attorneys work to provide advice, form a database of documents necessary to protect the rights of servicemen and their families, and defend their rights in court.
Legal Development Network — is a network of public cooperation of human rights organizations that provides assistance to the public and creates a knowledge base for legal education.
It is also worth noting that many well-known Ukrainian traditional law firms cooperate with IT, media and technology businesses, and develop software for them or help them develop services. According to experts, some of these law firms successfully sell such Legal Tech solutions to foreign firms.
According to Clarity Project CEO Oleksandr Nikitenkov, the Ukrainian market experienced a decline in 2022-2023 due to the full-scale war, but the market began to revive in the second half of 2023. "We saw this in our users and paid subscriptions. In 2024, we tripled our revenue compared to 2023. The number of employees has also increased. There were no dismissals in the team. Only the recruitment of new employees," said Oleksandr.
CEO Clarity Project Олександр Нікітєнков
At our request, the CEO of Clarity Project also named his subjective list of the TOP-10 Ukrainian Legal Tech companies: Liga, Youcontrol, Clarity Project, VKursi, Opendatabot, Axon Partners, ZakonOnline, Jusnote, National Information Systems, and Diia.
Petro Bilyk, Head of AI at Juscutum, also told us that the war has significantly changed the Ukrainian Legal Tech market. Before it started, there were competitions and programs such as Hiil Innovations for Justice, Startup Crash Test, Aequo Legal Tech Challenge, Liga Zakon Awards, which contributed to the development of the industry. Legal Tech startups could participate in the 1991 acceleration program, and the Ukrainian Startup Fund provided grants.
"With the outbreak of the war, these competitions stopped, and the Ukrainian Startup Fund focused initially on Defense Tech projects, which affected the development of the Legal Tech market. However, new opportunities and services have emerged that are adapted to current needs. For example, Pravomen has started providing consultations for IDPs, etc.," Petro Bilyk noted.
Керівник практики АІ компанії Юскутум Петро Білик
According to him, some educational projects were launched during the war, such as the Legal Design School course from the Legal Design Lab, which promotes the development of skills in the industry. A textbook on "Legal Innovations and Startups" was also published, and a summer school on legal innovations and startups for teachers was held. UCU also has a course on Digital Tools for Lawyers, and the Kyiv School of Economics has a course on Artificial Intelligence for Lawyers. Even before the war, the Ministry of Digital Transformation launched two courses on DigitalLawyers. "As for our company, we are a law firm that also creates Legal Tech technologies. Currently, we continue to be active, adapting to the new conditions, and last year we launched the practice of supporting artificial intelligence projects," the expert explained.
Petro Bilyk also told us his TOP list of Legal Tech companies and projects in Ukraine (in no particular order): Legal Alarm (an app for emergency lawyer call from Juscutum), Lawyerd, Pravoman, AXDRAFT, Jusnote, YouControl, Liga360, Vchasno Contract Management, Delegate.
YouControl Deputy Director of Legal Affairs Danylo Globa noted that the war has increased the demand for counterparty verification, such as sanctions.
Данило Глоба, заступник директора з правових питань YouControl
"In the first months of the full-scale invasion, the income of the YouControl analytical system dropped to zero. The work was complicated by the registers with the data used by the system being closed since the beginning of the war. Our adaptability helped us survive the crisis. There were no mass layoffs. The YouControl team currently includes about 120 specialists. We are actively hiring new specialists, in particular to develop new areas of analytics and improve products," the expert told us.
Prospects for the Legal Tech Industry and the Impact of AI
Ukraine today is one of the most open countries in the world in terms of open public data. This creates opportunities and great potential for the development of the Legal Tech industry. However, according to experts, there are several reasons that slow down the creation and development of such products. These include the lack of established communication between lawyers and clients, the gap between the IT sector and legal knowledge, and the lack of awareness among lawyers of the opportunities to obtain funding for legal innovation.
Analyzing the websites of the main startup programs, we can see that Legal Tech projects make up less than 10% of the total. In turn, various studies show that Ukrainians are ready and waiting for even more online solutions to legal issues.
"Most legal tech companies use open data in their products. Therefore, in my opinion, the entire industry is highly dependent on the political will to close or open certain registries and data. Since 2022, many registries have been closed that helped Legal Tech users to make effective decisions," explained Oleksandr Nikitenkov.
And there is another interesting point. Ukrainians most often switch to Legal Tech products from Youtube, regardless of whether it is a private or public product. So lawyers should think about developing blogs on Youtube.
As for the impact of artificial intelligence on the market, there is a rapid development of bots, startups, and process automation. However, it seems that AI will not completely replace the work of lawyers, as the legal process itself is bureaucratized, legislation in different countries is not the same, and regulation of artificial intelligence itself is not far off. For example, OpenAI's use policy prohibits the use of relevant technologies (the GPT speech model on which ChatGPT is based) to provide targeted legal advice without a lawyer's review.
"A lawyer is responsible for his services, if not with his property, then with his reputation. This is why, despite the possibility of mistakes, a live lawyer is a more rational option. New approaches will be able to compete only with convincing guarantees," said Vitaliy Melyankov, senior associate at Vasil Kisil & Partners, earlier.
But the CEO of Clarity Project believes that the use of artificial intelligence in legal tech projects will be a trend for years to come. "Currently, I am not aware of any successful cases of its use, even by the companies from the TOP-10 I mentioned. But I think that within a year or two, we will see the growth of products that use LLM," summarized Nikitenkov..
According to Petro Bilyk, the industry's potential is significant, as technology is actively penetrating various aspects of legal work, especially abroad. "With the launch of the e-court, many companies have begun to use digital capabilities, which is especially important in the context of constant shelling. A new generation of lawyers is growing up, so Legal Tech in Ukraine has great potential for development," the expert noted.
Наразі існують два дослідження української LegalTech галузі, проведені legaltech.org.ua та Lingo. Однак з початку війни карта Lega lTech України не оновлювалася, що ускладнює отримання актуальних даних про кількість компаній та фахівців у цій сфері. Тому точну кількість важко назвати, але можна припустити, що ситуація змінилася через поточні події.
As for the prospects for the development of the Ukrainian Legal Tech industry, the head of AI practice at Juscutum highlighted the following aspects: active implementation of new technologies in legal processes; growing interest in artificial intelligence, especially among large companies; access to international markets - Ukrainian companies are expanding their presence abroad, which creates a need for lawyers to work with the law of other countries. As for AI, the expert noted that it helps automate routine tasks, such as document analysis, legal information search, and preparation of standard contracts, as well as increases the accuracy and speed of legal processes.
According to Danylo Globa of YouControl, the prospects for the development of the LegalTech industry in Ukraine look optimistic, especially given the digital transformation of the legal sector. "One of the trends is the automation of compliance, providing business and the public sector with tools for fast and high-quality verification of counterparties, monitoring changes, etc. Another trend is the automation of litigation, in particular, the introduction of the Unified Judicial Information and Telecommunication System. And AI is already beginning to actively influence the Ukrainian LegalTech market by automating routine tasks. The use of AI allows to reduce the time for information processing, increasing the efficiency of lawyers in drafting documents and formulating legal positions," the expert noted.
According to him, the restriction of access to sources of official information, which has been observed in recent years, negatively affects the operation of analytical systems based on its analysis. Under such conditions, these systems cannot develop effectively, which, in turn, negatively affects the transparency and security of business in Ukraine, the fight against corruption and other important processes in business, society and the state.
As you can see, Legal Tech is not only a new IT trend, but also a necessity for modern society. Ukraine has every chance to become a leader in this field, given the availability of a large amount of open data, technical potential and readiness of Ukrainians for digital transformation. Some cybersecurity experts emphasize the inadequate data security in Ukraine, but the active development of Legal Tech can be a response to the challenges and ensure efficiency, accessibility, and fairness for users. And artificial intelligence will help with this.
Lawyers, IT professionals, and industry representatives may also find two interesting studies conducted by USAID, LinGo, and Legal Hackers Kyiv useful. These are an analysis of global experience in solving legal problems and developing product scaling capabilities and a guide to using technical tools to create Legal Tech products.
P. S. Mezha.Media editorial team congratulates all lawyers on the past holiday :)
