My name is Dmytro Chuguienko. I am an attorney and the managing partner of Disputes Law Firm. On August 30, 2016, I took the attorney's oath and received my license to practice law in Ukraine. Ten years have passed to the day.
I did not come to the Bar straight from law school. Seven years of work came first: state enforcement officer in Odesa, in-house lawyer at a bank, lawyer at the Odesa City Council, lawyer at a law firm, general counsel at an agricultural holding company. I had seen disputes from the side of the state, from the side of business, and from the side of the judgment creditor before I ever argued one as an attorney.
Invaluable experience, and I am grateful for it — but I would not change my decision to go to the Bar under any circumstances.
I am an attorney to the core. My life is part of my work, not the other way around.
Ten years on a license mean nothing unless you have won, or done everything in your power to win.
In ten years there were three moments when it could all have ended.
2020. Within weeks, the lockdown shut down every familiar route by which clients found a lawyer. I had to take the client acquisition system apart and rebuild it from scratch. My practice has lived online ever since.
2022. After February 24, work stopped almost entirely — for four months. Cases began coming back over the summer, and by the end of the year the practice was running at full pace again.
2023–2026. I began running the firm on my own, without partners. I rebuilt the team: no more bringing in outside attorneys, and a deliberate bet on a permanent in-house core. Alongside that — winters with no electricity and no heating.
Any of these moments could have been the end. None was.
But this is not resilience. It is a path, and you walk it as long as you can. You do not choose. The choice was made long before.
Today Disputes Law Firm handles matters for clients on every inhabited continent — the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the EU, Israel, and the Gulf states. Family disputes and international children's cases, including proceedings under the Hague Convention; civil status documents; criminal proceedings; commercial disputes; immigration and corporate matters.
What comes next? The same as yesterday and the same as ten years ago: cases that have to be won, technologies that have to be learned, and the remarkable people you meet along the way.
Ten years at the Bar. As long as I am alive and able to do my work — I am still walking.
