For more than four years, Ukraine has fought to defend its territory and sovereignty. At the same time, it has been rebuilding its justice system to meet European Union standards and prepare for eventual membership.
For American companies looking at postwar Ukraine, the question is no longer simply whether the country will rebuild, but whether its institutions will be strong enough to support the capital, businesses and disputes that reconstruction will bring.
The opportunity is enormous. Public assistance alone cannot finance Ukraine’s reconstruction, and private investment will have to play a growing role. U.S. companies are likely to be active in energy, infrastructure, technology, defense, manufacturing and financial services. But companies making long-term investments in Ukraine will need more than commercial opportunity. They will need confidence that contracts will be enforced, regulators can be challenged and disputes can be resolved through institutions they trust.
One important test will be the reform of Ukraine’s legal profession.
Under the government’s Rule of Law Roadmap, Ukraine is expected to adopt a new Law on the Bar and Legal Practice by the end of 2026. The proposed reform is intended to modernize the profession, strengthen accountability and bring it closer to European practice, while responding to digitalization, including the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence.
How that reform is designed may matter almost as much as what it ultimately says.
The government working group preparing the reform has 27 members, with only one seat allocated to the Ukrainian National Bar Association, or UNBA. That has prompted concerns within the profession about whether the bar will have sufficient opportunity to contribute its institutional experience.
That concern should not be dismissed. An independent legal profession cannot be effectively regulated without meaningful participation from the profession itself. But the ultimate measure of the reform should be broader than the composition of a working group. What matters is whether the process genuinely considers competing views, whether proposals are supported by comparative evidence and whether the final law protects the independence and effectiveness of lawyers.
The war has increased the importance of having internationally credible legal profession. The risks facing foreign businesses in Ukraine are great. In Kyiv, Ukraine’s first McDonald’s, opened in 1997, has been damaged by Russian strikes, yet continued operating and rebuilding. The Coca-Cola plant near Kyiv, in operation since 1998, was hit by a Russian drone just this month. These are the extraordinary conditions in which foreign businesses are making long-term decisions about Ukraine: physical assets can be damaged overnight, while the legal and commercial relationships must continue to function.
The war has also created a huge volume of legal work. A growing number of Ukrainian attorneys, pro-bono within Advokat+ initiative, assist service members and their families with legal procedures, applications and complaints. It is a practical example of why an independent and capable bar matters in everyday life.
An American company operating in Ukraine will have to deal with contracts, licenses, taxation, regulatory decisions, public procurement and commercial disputes. It may face a disagreement with a Ukrainian counterparty, a regulatory decision or a claim arising from damage to its property. Investors do not expect to eliminate those risks. They do expect a legal system in which they can understand their rights and obtain an independent remedy when those rights are challenged.
Attorneys are central to that system. Discussions of rule-of-law reform in Ukraine often focus on judges, prosecutors and anti-corruption institutions. Those institutions are essential. But businesses and individuals experience the legal system through the lawyers who advise and represent them.
A lawyer must be able to challenge a regulator, contest a tax assessment or defend a client against the state without compromising professional independence. That requires more than competent courts. It requires lawyers who are free to represent clients, protected by legal privilege and accountable to credible professional standards.
The profession is also being rebuilt at a moment when the practice of law itself is changing.
The next generation of Ukrainian lawyers will enter a legal market shaped by AI, which is already changing legal research or document review. In postwar Ukraine, lawyers may be asked to work simultaneously across Ukrainian law, European regulation, sanctions, international arbitration, reconstruction contracts and enormous bodies of evidence.
That creates an unusual opportunity. Ukraine can design its legal profession for the next decade rather than simply modernize a model developed for an earlier era. New lawyers will need to know how to use AI effectively, how to protect confidential information, and how to retain professional judgment when technology becomes increasingly capable.
The objective, therefore, should not be modernization for its own sake. The reform must protect professional independence, self-governance, legal privilege and access to justice while strengthening accountability and transparency. Those goals are not contradictory. A profession can be more accountable without becoming less independent.
Getting that balance right will require serious comparative analysis. There is no single European model for organizing the legal profession. EU member states differ in professional governance, admission, discipline and oversight. A model used in one European jurisdiction may offer useful guidance without being the only model consistent with European practice. Comparative law should be used to inform Ukraine’s choices, not to provide a predetermined answer.
That distinction matters because Ukraine is not merely updating its bar. It is building the legal infrastructure of a country that expects to attract foreign capital, integrate more deeply with European markets and rebuild after the largest war in Europe in generations.
For American businesses, the quality of that infrastructure will influence whether Ukraine is viewed as an opportunity worth pursuing or a risk worth avoiding.
