E-justice in Ukraine: challenges and prospects for lawyers in 2025

In 2025, e-discovery became an integral part of the Ukrainian legal system. This is not just a technological service, but a new reality for lawyers and legal entities, which both opens up new opportunities and creates new risks.

Advantages: efficiency and distance

The e-court has significantly expanded the capabilities of lawyers: documents can be submitted without queues and postal delays, cases can be filed from anywhere in Ukraine, and hearings can be attended online. For legal entities, the system has become a tool for daily work: they can create an electronic power of attorney, set up notifications, track procedural deadlines, send documents of enforcement proceedings, etc.

More and more attorneys emphasize that the ability to work with the electronic cabinet significantly reduces logistics costs and allows them to respond quickly to the actions of the court or their opponent.

Challenges: technical failures and court practice

Despite its functionality, the system has many problems. The most frequent complaints are freezing of the account, loss of access, and lack of notifications about new documents. Lawyers emphasize that a failure to access the e-court can cost a lost case, as the deadline for appealing may expire without the party’s knowledge.

The case law of 2025 already provides answers to many controversial issues:

• Failure to provide access to the office due to the change of the director of a legal entity is not a valid reason for extending the deadline.
• Submission of a warrant by a lawyer through an e-court without a “physical” signature is sufficient to confirm the authority.
• Violations by the court, such as failure to upload case files to the UJITS, are recognized as a gross violation of the right to defense.

The courts also remind that if the decision is sent to the office after 5 p.m., it is considered to be delivered the next business day. This detail can be critical in disputes over deadlines.

Current changes and technical nuances

Since January 2025, the procedure for refunding the court fee has changed: now it can be done only on the basis of an electronic application submitted to the court or the SJA. Important for legal entities: when creating an electronic power of attorney, it is easy to make a mistake by choosing an “individual” instead of a “legal entity” – this will lead to the cancellation of warrants and errors in the submission of documents.

The electronic cabinet allows you to customize the format of receiving notifications (only for procedural documents, as attachments, etc.), as well as track the status of each document: when it was created, when it was signed, when it was registered with the court.

In the Enforcement Documents section, the user can view all documents of the enforcement proceedings: resolutions, status of the proceedings, amount of debt, and a link to the signed file.

E-court is a tool that makes lawyer’s work modern, but it requires digital literacy, attention to detail, and constant monitoring of the system. A lawyer must not only know the law, but also be able to work with interfaces, electronic signatures, and deadlines.

The digitalization of justice is ongoing, and it is the legal community that should drive it. From the technical discipline of each individual to justice on a national scale.