P laces We've Been
SERVING JUSTICE — FAR AWAY By Edward McIntyre
L
ife is what happens when you make other plans. The pandemic was starting to force shutdowns worldwide right around the time that two attorneys, Elizabeth Hull
and Scott Smith, partners at Best, Best & Krieger, were teaching undergraduate law to students and young lawyers in Ukraine, some 6000 miles away from home. Thankfully, they were still able to give these young legal hopefuls a good introduction to Western-style law and ethics before the pandemic closed everything down. Both volunteered with The Leavitt Institute for International Development. Elizabeth taught law students in Kyiv — at Tara Shevchenko, Kyiv Mohyla and Aviation Universities — and in Kharkiv, near the Russian border — at Karazin and Yaroslav Mudryi National Universities. Her fellow teacher from the Institute was Judge Donald Eyre (Ret.), a Utah judge for 40 years. They taught the principles of testimonial evidence — direct examination, relevant evidence, and developing evidentiary foundation — to classes of nine to 20 students, preparing them for an eventual mock trial. Hence, a significant portion of the classes, taught in English but with an interpreter standing by, involved role play. In the evenings, Elizabeth and Judge Eyre — this being his third Institute trip to Ukraine — met with young lawyers to discuss our adversarial trial system. A judicial system designed to protect the rights of the accused, with an impartial judiciary and jury trials based only on reliable evidence, is relatively new in Ukraine, which lived so long under a Soviet style of criminal prosecution. As Elizabeth remarked, the Maiden Revolution occurred only in 2014 and the young lawyers whom she met were, but six years before, either supporting revolutionaries in Independence Square or in the Square itself demanding change and risking their lives. She found them driven to learn how a judicial system we take for granted works. The Leavitt Institute for International Development, founded in 2005 by David and Chelom Leavitt, is dedicated to spreading democracy, ethics, and rule of law in developing nations. As part of this effort, it brings legal professionals
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SAN DIEGO LAWYER
| July/August 2020