The lobbying community in Ukraine is forming new professional standards and initiating improvements in legislative regulation

The Ukrainian National Bar Association hosted a meeting of the Lobbying Committee, which demonstrated the formation of a professional core of lawyers engaged in lobbying activities in Ukraine. The participants of the meeting outlined further areas of work focused on legal regulation of the lobbyist status, protection of professional information and development of a unified practice of application of the law.

One of the priorities is to prepare official explanations on the relationship and differences between the attorney-client privilege and the lobbyist privilege. Pursuant to Article 22 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Bar and Practice of Law”, the attorney-client privilege is any information that an attorney has learned about a client in connection with the provision of legal aid, and the obligation to keep it applies to an assistant, trainee and other persons working with an attorney.

At the same time, the Law of Ukraine “On Lobbying” No. 3606-IX, which came into force on September 1, 2025, introduced a separate legal regulation of lobbying activities and defined lobbying as an activity aimed at influencing the object of lobbying in the commercial interests of the beneficiary or in the person’s own commercial interests. The Law also provides for the functioning of the Transparency Register and reporting obligations of lobbying entities.

Following the meeting, it was also decided to prepare proposals to the legislation to strengthen the guarantees of lobbyists’ activities, in particular, to protect the information they possess, personal data and information obtained and used in the interests of clients. Such initiatives are intended to ensure legal certainty of the boundaries of professional confidentiality and promote the development of a consistent law enforcement practice in accordance with the requirements of Ukrainian law.

From the standpoint of legal doctrine, this means a transition from a fragmented understanding of lobbying to an institutionalized model of professional activity, where transparency, accountability and protection of confidential information should be balanced with constitutional guarantees of the right to legal aid and professional independence of a lawyer.