Legal English Course for Ukrainian and Belarusian Lawyers

ByAlex

We have just finished running the first course of Legal English for Ukrainian and Belarusian lawyers. The course, organised in association with the Cracow Bar Association, consisted of five sessions covering a lot of Legal English vocabulary.

Lawyers who want to work with international clients find it very useful to have a foundational understanding of the common law system. It was really interesting to compare the civil and common law system and learn about students’ experience, as well as work on specific vocabulary.

Students learnt about the legal profession, civil and criminal procedure, client care and correspondence.

Legal English 1st Session: the Legal profession

Our first session covered the legal profession and practice. We compared the professions in four jurisdictions: England, Poland, Ukraine and Belarus. We spoke about solicitors and barristers and differences between these two professions. We also covered advocates, attorneys, legal advisers, counsel, judges and prosecutors. Students learnt about the differences between a law firm and a sole practice.

Legal profession and practice

‘Thank you very much for the work you have done. It was really useful!‘

‘This course was very useful for me. I have learnt a lot of interesting information about English law and English court system. Also, you are a good speaker. ‘

Students

Legal English 2nd Session: Civil procedure

We covered quite a lot of vocabulary and learnt about courts and tribunals, parties to the proceedings, stages of litigation and instructions to counsel. We compared the English courts to the Polish, Ukrainian and Belarusian courts.

Civil procedure

We managed to find quite a lot of similarities between the systems, but some students were surprised to learn about bundles. It is difficult to find this word in any Legal English dictionary so we spent some time discussing the content of bundles, the chronology, witness statements and all the necessary elements. We also covered various types of service.

Legal English 3rd Session: Client care

The third session covered client care and everything we need to know about working in a law firm. We spoke about client care letters, structure of a law firm, KYC checks and client calls.

‘Thank you for this course! It is useful knowledge for me.’

‘Thank You for your time and live communication!‘

‘Thanks for the course. It was helpful and rewarding.‘

Students

Legal English 4th Session: Criminal procedure

We spoke about the magistrates’ courts and the Crown Court and spent quite a lot of time talking about the jury trial. It was difficult to decide which system works better and we had some really interesting discussions.

1. Magistrates’ courts and the role of the magistrates

2. The Crown Court and the jury

3. Parties to the proceedings and prosecution

4. Types of offences

Criminal procedure

We also looked at the summary, either way and indictable offences.

Legal English 5th Session: Case studies

Our last session covered case studies and we looked at some disciplinary decisions and case studies from the last three years. Students tried to guess the outcome of the proceedings.

Some words we learnt:

  • misconduct
  • negligence
  • hearing
  • breach
  • grievance
  • harassment
  • toxic environment
  • trolling
  • victimisation
  • discrimination

Student Feedback:

‘I wanted to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude for the online legal English classes you recently offered. As someone who is eager to improve their legal English skills, your classes were an invaluable resource for me.
 
Although I wasn’t able to attend all of the classes due to my work schedule, the ones I did attend were incredibly helpful and informative. I appreciate the effort you put into creating such engaging and informative sessions, and I am grateful for the opportunity to learn from you.

Thank you again for your dedication to teaching and for providing such a valuable learning experience.’
Maryna,
Ukrainian Lawyer, London

Thank you to all the students for being active, asking questions and sharing your experience. It was a pleasure to meet you and I hope we will meet again soon at the Introduction to Legal English Part 2. We had 30 students attending the first course and we already have 50 students who have signed up for the second.

Thank you to the Cracow Bar Association for co-organising the course.

The second course will start on 27 March 2023.

Please get in touch to enquire about other courses.

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