“On October 4th, Brooklyn Defender Services hosted a group of judges and lawyers from Ukraine working on local anti-corruption matters. The Ukraine Study Tour, hosted by the US Department of State, spent a week touring courts and the offices of public defenders and prosecutors with the aim of equipping these officials with the knowledge and tools needed to effectively combat high-level corruption.

The tour included a walk through of BDS’ office and a presentation by our senior criminal defense staff. Yung-Mi Lee, Legal Director of BDS’ Criminal Defense Practice, led a panel of senior staff to share best practices on trial advocacy, case management, and plea agreement techniques within an adversarial legal system. The team shared BDS’ intensive trial training for new and experienced criminal defense attorneys and described our interdisciplinary model of defense that pairs investigators, science and technology experts and social workers with criminal defense attorneys to provide the best representation to our clients. We thank our visitors from Ukraine for the opportunity to share our mission, knowledge, and the perspective of public defense to help them develop their legal practice.”