An article in the Daily Journal on March 2, 2015, "Program brings Afghani law students to Chapman University," highlights the ongoing success of the U.S. State Department's Public Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan, which is co-chaired by U/Z's Tom Umberg. The program is designed to support the rule of law in Afghanistan by bringing young Afghan lawyers to participating U.S. law schools for a year of study. 45 students have successfully completed the program so far. Tom was in Afghanistan earlier this year interviewing applicants with the goal of selecting up to 20 students to come to the U.S. this August.
An article in the Daily Journal on March 2, 2015, “Program brings Afghani law students to Chapman University,” highlights the ongoing success of the U.S. State Department’s Public Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan, which is co-chaired by U/Z’s Tom Umberg.
The program is designed to support the rule of law in Afghanistan by bringing young Afghan lawyers to participating U.S. law schools for a year of study. According to the article, approximately 45 students have successfully completed the program so far. Tom, along with Jones Day partner Pete Garvin and Arnold & Porter partner Charles Blanchard, is in Afghanistan this week interviewing applicants with the goal of selecting up to 20 students to come to the U.S. this August.
Tom is quoted in the DJ article: “We’ve been blessed to have really courageous people who literally risk their lives to participate in the program and return to Afghanistan.” He goes on to highlight the five-year connection of the program to Orange County’s Chapman University School of Law: “Umberg describes Chapman as the ‘gold standard’ because it provides the law students with mentoring and housing, and its leaders ‘really go out of their way to make the students feel accepted and acclimate them to the U.S.'”
For information about the challenges of establishing rule of law in Afghanistan, see “A Patchwork Strategy of Consensus: Establishing Rule of Law in Afghanistan,” co-authored by Tom and published in Joint Force Quarterly in 2010.
