Interview with Lawyer Olga Sverchkova: My Practice and How I Work

I advise on court disputes and criminal cases, family and property disputes and commercial matters, and I prepare legal positions. If you’re not sure whether your situation is within my practice, describe it in your own words. I’ll tell you whether I can help and what work may be needed, so you can decide whether that suits you.

If you already have a lawyer or your case is in court but you still have doubts, you can ask for a second opinion. You don’t have to prove first that someone made a mistake: it’s enough that you want to understand your situation better. I’ll study the documents and look at what the legal position rests on, what risks it carries and what options remain. To start, you can send the claim, court decisions and any other procedural documents you have. If something is missing for an assessment, I’ll tell you exactly what. I explain this format in more detail on the Second Legal Opinion page.

A consultation on one case costs 15,000 roubles or the US dollar equivalent and includes a review of up to 30 pages of documents. You get my answer in writing, by email, WhatsApp or Telegram. I’ll explain how I assess the situation from a legal point of view, what the options and risks are and whether you need a lawyer’s help beyond that. If there are more documents, reviewing them is charged separately, and I’ll tell you the total price before the work starts.

Yes. I know that can be hard to hear, especially when you’ve already put a lot into the case. But you need to know where the legal risks are, what evidence is missing and which options are worth considering. So I’ll explain my assessment and the documents it’s based on, and if there isn’t enough information yet, I’ll say that too. I can’t guarantee a positive outcome, but I can help you understand your situation before you decide what to do next.

Of course. You don’t need to know the law to understand what’s happening with your case. I’ll explain unfamiliar words and what each proposed step means, and if something is still unclear, you can ask again. I started explaining the law in plain language in my column “A Lawyer Rushes to Help”, which won the Golden Pen of Russia award. With clients, too, I try to make sure the answer to their question doesn’t get lost in legal jargon.

With your account and your documents. You don’t have to set everything out in order the first time: if events are tangled or it’s hard to tell what matters, I’ll ask follow-up questions. Then I’ll piece together the sequence of events and compare your account with the documents. In a complex case, what often matters isn’t any single episode but how the episodes connect, so I don’t rush to conclusions.

I personally advise, review the documents and oversee the work on the case. I’m a member of the Leningrad Region Bar Chamber, registration number 47/825. I founded my own practice, Advokat Peterburga, and take on cases across Russia, both at the investigation stage and in court.

Yes. I live in Tbilisi now, but I continue my legal practice. You don’t need to meet me in an office for a consultation or a document review: you send the materials, and once I’ve studied them, I reply in writing. If your case needs a lawyer in court or during investigative procedures, one of the Russian lawyers I work with takes that on. We agree this in advance, you know who’s involved in your case, and I continue to oversee the work.

I always wanted to be a lawyer. I feel injustice keenly, and a lawyer is the one who takes a person’s side when things are hard. I never imagined another profession for myself. Straight after university I started as a trainee under a practising lawyer, then passed the qualifying exam and was admitted to the bar. A lot has changed over the years, but it still matters to me that the person who comes for help understands what’s happening with their case and feels free to ask questions, even ones that seem simple or awkward.

I don’t use my clients’ stories in posts or in books, even without names: sometimes a person can be recognised from a few details. Lawyer-client confidentiality under Russian law covers even the fact that someone asked a lawyer for help, and the duty to keep it has no time limit. What you entrust to a lawyer doesn’t become material for a public story once the case is over.

I’ve been practising law in St Petersburg for more than twenty years. It’s my home city, and now I live in Tbilisi. My family is my husband, my son and two Belgian Malinois. I say little about my family; that’s our private life.

Yes, I’ve been writing books since 2019. Among them is a crime novel, The Alibi of St. Petersburg. My experience as a lawyer helps me describe the work of the defence accurately, but the plot and characters are invented, and my clients’ stories don’t end up in my books. You can read about my books and what I’m writing now on my author website, olgasverchkova.com.

Message me on Telegram or WhatsApp, or email me. Tell me what happened, what stage the case is at and what you’d like to find out. If you can’t put the question into words yet, start with what’s worrying you, and we’ll work out the rest. If your documents give the date of the next hearing or a deadline for a reply or an appeal, mention it in your first message. I reply during working hours, Tbilisi time.