Anna Yudkivska started her advocacy carrier in 1996. She represented the Steven Spielberg's Foundation (Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation) in Ukraine and Moldova. While working at the Foundation she studied the phenomena of genocide, intolerance, discrimination, racism. She took part in different researches of the Simon Wiesental Tolerance Center (Los Angeles), the purpose of which was to comprehend sources of xenophobia and intolerance and to develop the social climate with esteem to human rights as the most important value. Together with other human rights societies she organized "Round Table discussions" on problems of discrimination and human rights violations. Since 2001 she serves as an adviser for the Foundation, which nowadays is a department of the University of Southern California (Los Angeles).

Approximately at the same time she began to work with the Ukrainian–American Human Rights Bureau. Together with studying at law department of the Kyiv National University she cooperated with the Association of National Societies of Ukraine - she led the educational project "Lessons of Tolerance in Ukrainian schools", the purpose of which was bringing up teenagers to respect fundamental rights.

In 1999 she was trained at the Human Rights School of the Helsinki Foundation, organized by late Marek Novitsky - the legend and most well-known teacher of human rights. For Anna, as for hundreds of other graduates of Novitsky all over the Europe, this school became a “free pass” to active advocacy movement.

She always dreamed to become a professional defence attorney in order to defend people from outrage of the state at a high professional level. One of the most fortunate events in her life, to her personal opinion, was the privilege to work with Mr Grygoiy Ginsburg - one of the most outstanding Ukrainian jurists, the Merited Lawyer of Ukraine. At first she worked as his assistant in the Pechersk Bar of Kyiv- she prepared all procedural documents for cases he conducted; was present with him at court hearings and during his consultations. After passing Bar exam she began to conduct cases together with him. Further he handed over to her some of his cases, which he could not deal with due to health problems. She is proud that she was the follower of this outstanding lawyer, one of the last masters of the old school of attorneys, and inherited his experience. This eminent person gave her principles of this noble profession, taught her not only tactics of the defence and trial advocacy but also comprehension of the gist of law as an "art of good and justice". He was and still remains for her a paragon of legal mastery; and she always tries to follow his professional and moral level.

After she successfully passed the Bar exam, she got a position of lawyer at the Pechersk Bar of Kyiv. She conducted criminal, civil, labour and administrative cases. She worked a lot and with enthusiasm as a State-appointed defence counsel, according to Article 47 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of Ukraine, since she is convinced that this experience is extremely important to acquire defence skills and to become highly qualified lawyer.
In 2004 Anna improved her knowledge of the European Convention and case-law of the European Court of Human Rights at the Raul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (Sweden), and later she participated in the Practical Training on International Human Rights Litigation in the Netherlands.

With knowledge and skills obtained, she managed to support the leading human rights organizations of Ukraine - for the Kharkiv Human Rights Group she conducted cases, supported by the Fund for professional defence for victims of tortures, and she also served as a defence attorney for the "Foundation of legal help for human rights abuses victims" of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union. She defended interests of different groups - refugees, victims of political repressions, invalids, victims of tortures, disadvantaged persons etc. Besides she defended interests of her several clients before the European Court of Human Rights. She also taught other lawyers and judges the Convention and case-law of the European Court during seminars and trainings.

In October 2004 she was elected a judge of the Kyiv Arbitration Court.
In December of the same year the Kyiv City’s Mayor awarded her an “Acknowledgement  for a great personal contribution to the realization of the State legal policy and high professionalism”.

For more detailed study of the European Convention and case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, in May 2005 Anna Yudkivska took up a position of a lawyer of the Registry of the Court, which she occupies now. In February of this year she received LLM in Law and European Studies at the Robert Schumann University (France) - the leading European university in the field of European law. Her specialization was "Human Rights in Europe ". As of 2005 she works at her PhD dissertation on "Rights of Accused in the Case-Law of the European Court of Human Rights and Criminal Procedure in Ukraine". She has a number of publications in this respect.

We strongly believe that Anna will win! She deserves this high post, because she has practical experience and profound knowledge.