Maxim is a human rights defender, attorney-at-law, research scholar and Ph.D. in Philosophy with more than twelve years of law practice in Russia defending refugees, civil activists persecuted by the Russian authorities, and NGOs labeled as “foreign agents.” 

Throughout his professional career he has specialized in the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Since 2011, he has represented applicants in cases related to migration law (refugees and asylum seekers), including cooperation with the UNHCR. Since 2014, he has defended dozens of civil activists persecuted by the Russian authorities for participating in peaceful public events (demonstrations and pickets), including representing their interests at the ECHR.

Since the adoption of “foreign agents” laws in Russia, he has represented many well-known nonprofit human rights organizations in court, in cases challenging their inclusion in the “foreign agents” register and in cases of bringing them to administrative liability for violating “foreign agents” legislation.

Over the past six years, as an independent expert, he has prepared more than forty independent anti-corruption expert opinions in the field of migration, administrative, environmental, criminal, criminal procedural legislation, and legislation on nonprofit organizations.

Maxim has been published in such outlets as The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, The Conversation, Russia.Post, Forbes Russia, Foreign Affairs and others. 

He is a former visiting scholar at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, former non-resident fellow at the The George Washington University and former research scholar at The Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Galina Starovoitova Fellowship on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution).

Currently he is conducting a comprehensive comparative research on “foreign agents” legislation in Russia and other countries of the world from the resilient democracy perspective, as well as studying various other authoritarian mechanisms used to suppress civil society.