KIAP, Attorneys at law, is a modern law firm with a socially oriented mission. We want to make our Russian legal world a better place: we strive to make our contribution to the development of philanthropy in the Russian legal market, as well as to support its unification to work together for the benefit of the country's legal system. KIAP lawyers are successfully engaged in teaching activities at the law departments of the country’s leading universities. We also support major educational programs and competitions. Our lawyers write books that become bestsellers.
International Charity Legal Run
In 2014 KIAP team established Legal Run – the first international charity run that has been uniting representatives of the global professional community of lawyers. In 2018 Legal Run project and its team received an award of the legendary GQ magazine in the nomination “In a healthy business”..
Every year since 2014 the representatives of the Russian and foreign law firms, internal legal departments of the companies, students and teachers from law faculties participate in the run - in total more than 10 000 lawyers from 15 countries and 100 cities of the world have run their Legal Run in 2014-2018. Many of them run within their corporate teams – in 2017 150 teams ran their Legal Run, the most numerous of them consisted of nearly 50 lawyers.
In 2018 due to the holding of the finals of the World Cup 2018 in Russia the official races were not held, but regardless of that the project was supported by Global Legal Run 2018 flash mobs, which took place in 25 cities of the world.
Legal Run is a fundraising project. The contributions are collected during online registration, and the funds are directly transferred to the long-standing project partner «Gift of Life» Charity Fund and other local funds in other cities. From 2014 to 2018 within the framework of the project we succeeded to collect more than 12 million rubles, which allowed to provide 36 seriously ill children from Russia and abroad with necessary medical treatment. All funds raised this year during Global Legal Run 2018 were contributed to the implementation of the project of the “Gift of life” foundation for bone marrow transplantation in the regions.
The Runs are arranged at the expense of private donations and sponsor's funds — law firms, the number of which in 2017 reached a record figure of 100 companies. The Run is arranged by a professional team consisting of lawyers, marketing experts, sports events experts and volunteers - in 2017 more than 500 volunteers were involved in arranging races in 2017.
Legal Run is held under the auspices of Federal Chamber of Lawyers of the Russian Federation and St. Petersburg International Legal Forum and is traditionally dedicated to three events: 1 June - the Children's Day, 31 May - day of the Russian legal profession and World No Tobacco Day.
Legal Chess Tournament
In 2018, KIAP team established its second charity project - the Annual Legal Chess Tournament, a charity event that brings together representatives of one professional community — lawyers, as well as their colleagues, children and friends. For the first time the tournament was held with the support of the Pedagogical Chess Union on July 21, 2018 at Novotel Moscow City and was timed to the International Day of Chess, which is celebrated worldwide on July 20.
In 2018, within the framework of the Legal Chess project, there was raised about 300 thousand rubles, which were allocated for the treatment of Dani Smirnov (14 years old, Kady village, Kostroma region), a ward of «Gift of Life» Charity Fund. The raised money will help him to continue his treatment soon.
Let us recall that the Legal Chess is a fundraising project, the collection of contributions took place during the online registration for the tournament, and the money went directly to «Gift of Life» Charity Fund.
In 2018, the tournament was attended by about 130 players of different age categories: children from 5 to 18 years old (Groups A, B), and adult amateurs and chess professionals (Groups C1, C2, D).
Alexander Sergeevich Morozevich - Russian chess player, grandmaster (1994) became the special guest of the tournament. Two-time champion of Russia (1998, 2007), champion of Moscow (1992). Three-time winner of the World Chess Olympiads (1998, 2000 and 2002), two-time winner of the European Team Championship (2003, 2007) and two-time winner of the World Team Championships (2005, 2010) in the Russian team. Six-time Moscow blitz champion. Pupil of the USSR Honored Coach Vladimir Yurkov.
The project partners were: Zabeyda & Partners, Сom-Unity, ZKS, Sobolev and Partners, Kachkin and Partners, VETA Expert Group, Law Firm Stream, Barshchevsky and Partners, QUORUS Law Firm and Kulkov, Kolotilov and Partners.
Charity program “Lawyers for Kids”
In 2011 we initiated the charity program “Lawyers for Kids”. The essence of the project is to provide consultations on pro bono basis and to transfer the recovered judicial expenses on lawyers (court agents) to charity funds to support children suffering from serious illnesses, many of whom require expensive medical treatment or complex operations.
Seven law firms from Moscow, St. Petersburg and other regions have joined the project. As a rule, the winning party in litigation may recover its litigation fees from the opponent. We help our clients to recover court expenses for free subject to one condition: the clients transfer part of it to child charity funds "Gift of Life", "Life Line Fund" and other funds. We believe that together with our clients we do make difference.
Chulpan Khamatova, actress and co-founder of the “Gift of Life” charity fund notes the benefits of such projects: “Law for Kids” is an important and honorable project worthy of respect. Thanks to your participation, clinics got equipment, small patients - medicines, and families - support. We thank you for your generosity and trust.”
Education and teaching activities
KIAP lawyers are successfully engaged in teaching activities at the law departments of the country’s leading universities. We also support major educational programs and competitions. Our lawyers write books that become bestsellers. Let’s focus on each activity.
Lomonosov Moscow State University
Law faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University annually hosts the Summer School of Masters, which brings together law teachers and students, consultants and in-house lawyers, masters and students. For several years, KIAP has supported the project, and our lawyers have acted as speakers - Andrey Korelskiy, Alexey Sizov, Julia Kirpikova and others.
Every year in autumn the Law Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University hosts a week of “Nachitka” – free practical workshops for students, postgraduates and junior associates from the leading practicing lawyers, partners of Russian and international law firms. KIAP acts as general partner and Anna Grishchenkova is the speaker of the event.
Higher School of Economics
Higher School of Economics is also a long-time partner of KIAP. Partners Andrey Korelskiy and Anna Grishchenkova are speakers and co-organizers of the Summer School of Higher School of Economics, Andrey Korelskiy gives master classes within the Master’s program “Legal Management”, and Roman Suslov, senior associate of banking and finance practice, is a teacher in the department of civil and business law. In addition, in 2018, KIAP supported the project of the Law Faculty of Higher School of Economics “Preparing an Academic Audience (Hall) for Mock-Trials”.
Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL)
In 2018, seven partners and leaders of KIAP practices conducted a series of lectures at Kutafin Moscow State Law University (MSAL) and talked about the main principles and secrets of a lawyer in a modern law firm - the speakers were Alexey Sizov, Anna Grishchenkova, Yulia Kirpikova, Ilya Dedkovskiy and other lawyers of KIAP.
MGIMO University
KIAP lawyers are successfully engaged in teaching activities in MGIMO. In 2015 KIAP partner Konstantin Astafiev conducted a course of lectures titled “Anti-corruption legislation in Russia and foreign jurisdictions. Compliance and corruption control”. The course was offered as part of master’s programme for lawyers called “Corporate law and legal support for international projects” and consisted of seven lectures and a case study workshop.
Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov
During several years on an annual basis KIAP conducted a contest of scientific works for the students of the Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov on various areas of law.
Competition on international commercial arbitration named after M.G. Rosenberg
In 2018 there took place the Fifth International student competition on international commercial arbitration "RFTA - 2018 - the international purchase and sale" named after M.G. Rosenberg, organized with the support of Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation.
Arbitration committee has awarded victory to RFTA team, which was prepared to the competition by KIAP partner Anna Grishchenkova. A total of 32 teams from different regions of Russia and a number of foreign countries, including teams from the Republic of Belarus and Kazakhstan, took part in the competition. Competition named after M.G. Rosenberg was founded in 2014 by International Private law centre of Russian Foreign Trade Academy of Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation and constitutes the only student competition on international commercial arbitration in Russia.
Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot (Vis Moot)
Yearly in 2018 in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, was held the 2nd ICC-KLRCA Pre-Moot for the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot (Vis Moot), organized by International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and Asian International Arbitration Centre (AIAC), previously known as Kuala Lumpur Regional Centre for Arbitration (KLRCA). KIAP supported the Russian team represented by students from Higher School of Economics. In previous years KIAP supported teams from other universities participating in the competition.
The book of Anna Grishchenkova "Psychology and conviction in court," publishing house "Statut"
No secret that the main “tool” of a litigator is the skill of persuasion. It consists of many elements like a puzzle, including the content of written documents and oral presentation in court. Some people are given this talent by nature, but in most cases it is the result of experience and constant growth, search and application of best practices, taking into account the smallest details. Understanding the laws of psychology, the litigator acts more consciously and effectively. This book provides practical advice on the use of psychology at the stages of preparation for the case, drafting documents and oral presentation. This book will be useful for both practicing litigators and law students.
Support for law books release
Thanks to financial support of KIAP, there have been recently released some important law books: the textbook “International Commercial Arbitration” (the magazine “Arbitration Court”), in which Anna Grishchenkova and Irina Suspitsyna acted as authors, as well as a book by Е.А. Sukhanov: “Problems of coding corporate and property law”, Selected Works of E.A. Sukhanov for 2013 - 2017 and “Liber Amicorum. Collection of works dedicated to the anniversary of E.A. Sukhanov”. KIAP also supported the publication of the RAA40 Newsletter, which was presented at the 10th Annual ABA Dispute Resolution Conference with the participation of the parties from the CIS countries, where Anna Grishchenkova and Natalia Kislyakova spoke as speakers in 2018. In addition, KIAP supported the publication of the e-book by A. G. Karapetov: “Transactions, representation, limitation of actions: article by article comment to art. 153-208 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation”, as well as the e-book“Inheritance Law: article-by-article commentary on Articles 1110-1185, 1224 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation” edited by E. Petrov.
Pro bono
The lawyers of KIAP provide pro bono support to a number of charity funds: «Starost v radost» (eng – “Oldness for Joy”), Sunflower, Gift of Life, and IP practice employees are members of the Pro Bono Committee of the International Trademark Association (INTA).
Corporate Gifts with Social Implications
The philosophy of social involvement also applies to our approach to gifts which we give to our clients and partners on the occasion of holidays. We strive to fill all our gifts with some special social meaning.
From our most recent experience: On March 8 we congratulated our fair clients and all legal community with a postcard which said that the congratulations came from those to whom they had given a big gift on their holiday. Together with the “In Your Hands” charity fund which is involved in social adaptation of orphanage children, we held a creative floristics master class for girls from orphan homes.
Our sense-bearing gifts frequently include involvement in their production of handicapped people who yet have a kind heart as well as young talented designers whom we support by placing our orders with them. Other gifts were positioned as “long-lasting gifts” and required the involvement of our clients and partners to implement the idea of the gift, for example: to make an environmental contribution to the city by planting a fir tree given as a gift in the nearest park or to hang up a stylish designer bird feeder at their country house.