The Third Cycle of the Program on Exploring the Lawyer’s Vocation: Returning to the Foundations
Everyday work in the criminal justice system involves decisions that affect people’s liberty and their trust in the justice system. Yet behind professional roles, procedures and powers there is always a person — and their ability to think, take responsibility for their choices and maintain an inner sense of direction.
For the third year running, the JustGroup team, together with philosopher and theologian Oleksandr Filonenko, has run the Program on Exploring the Lawyer’s Vocation (2024, 2025). In 2026, it brought together more than 20 participants from across the legal and criminal justice community — investigators, detectives, prosecutors, judges, lawyers and academics.
From March to August, they explored major works of philosophy and literature, reflected on responsibility, choice and professional ethics, and considered what helps legal professionals retain a sense of purpose in their work.
Virtues as the Foundation of Strong Institutions
The third cycle began at St Sophia’s Cathedral and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra — places that have shaped Ukrainian culture, statehood and intellectual traditions for centuries.
At St Sophia’s, we explored wisdom and its place in law, as well as the virtues from which institutions emerge. When institutions lose their connection to these virtues, meaning gradually gives way to formalism and corruption.
Father Heorhii Kovalenko helped participants see St Sophia’s through its history and symbolism during a guided tour of the cathedral.
At the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the conversation continued through the history of communities and traditions — exploring how ideas that emerge and are passed on within such environments can, over time, shape ways of thinking and influence the development of statehood.
Personal Responsibility Within a System
The next text on our journey was Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Together with Oleksandr Filonenko, participants read it through the lens of the contemporary world and professions concerned with law and justice.
Arendt’s book provided a starting point for exploring systems in which people may gradually relinquish independent thought, and in which the performance of a professional function can become a justification for their actions. For legal professionals, this has a very practical dimension: no procedure, instruction or order removes personal responsibility for one’s decisions and their consequences.
Through the ‘Dark Wood’
For the third year running, Dante’s Divine Comedy has remained one of the programme’s central texts. Participants approached it as the story of a person who finds himself in a ‘dark wood’, loses his bearings and searches for a path towards inner transformation.
Through Dante, participants explored decisions and their consequences, the nature of virtue, and the professional journey as one in which we inevitably encounter doubt and difficult choices — and must learn to recognise our own ‘dark wood’ and find a way through it.
Returning to a Sense of Wholeness
The final text of the third cycle was Pinocchio. A story familiar from childhood opened up as a reflection on growing up, truth, mistakes and transformation.
Participants read it through the eyes of adults seeking to remain honest with themselves and preserve a sense of integrity in their professional lives. The question of how a person becomes truly themselves became the final point on this year’s journey.
A Community United by a Shared Sense of Purpose
JustGroup runs the Lawyer’s Calling Exploration Programme through its own efforts and together with its community. The fact that the programme has now taken place for a third time reflects a continuing need among legal professionals for a space where they can slow down, step beyond their professional functions and return to the questions that first led them into the profession.
The programme does not offer a single answer to the question of calling. Each participant searches for their own — through texts, conversations, the experiences of others and personal reflection.
The third cycle has come to an end. The exploration continues — through everyday decisions, interactions with colleagues and the way each of us chooses to practise our profession.
The Program on Exploring the Lawyer’s Vocation is developed and delivered by JustLearn development hub of JustGroup with the support of the Faculty of Law at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Photo: Anna Putylina
More photos are available on JustGroup’s Facebook page.
