The Ukraine Pro Bono Collaborative has won the Pro Bono category at the LexisNexis Legal Awards 2024. The project team comprises six law firms, including White & Case LLP, and Greek NGO European Lawyers in Lesvos (ELIL).
The Warsaw-based project brings together Polish and Ukrainian pro bono lawyers to provide legal information and assistance to refugees arriving from Ukraine. Almost one million refugees have fled to Poland since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. ELIL brings its experience organizing free legal support for refugees, having established a collaborative pro bono project for refugees in Greece in 2019, of which White & Case is a member.
The Collaborative lawyers, based in five sites across Warsaw, assist with in-person and telephone inquiries covering a range of issues including access to accommodation, children's rights and guardianship, employment, setting up a business, social welfare, passports and IDs, residency permits, returning to Ukraine, and travel to other countries.
Over the past year, the team has provided more than 3,400 hours of free legal advice and assisted more than 7,100 people. The other members of the project are Allen & Overy, Bird & Bird, Dentons, Hogan Lovells and Norton Rose Fulbright.
This award follows a previous win, in December 2023, when the Ukraine Pro Bono Collaborative was named "Pro Bono Initiative of the Year" at the Lawyer European Awards.
