Hey! Here is what Todd does this summer.

I work for the American Bar Association office in Baku, Azerbaijan. ABA is a non-governmental organization (NGO) whose mission is to strengthen the rule of law in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is a young democracy rife with corruption and inefficiency. The government has been dominated by one family since independence from the Soviet Union in 1992.

ABA has several projects. First, we have a legal advocacy clinic (LAC) which provides low cost legal services to the public. LAC’s main goal is not to provide legal access to the public, however. LAC has created opportunities for young law graduates in Azerbaijan to gain the necessary experience in order to “pass the bar.” The legal field is different in Azerbaijan than in the US. Lawyers are divided into two categories here, defense attorneys and prosecutors. To become a defense attorney, students must complete their undergraduate degree. Law is an undergraduate major (like many European countries). Students who wish to become prosecutors must complete an additional three years apprenticeship with a member of the collegium, or Azerbaijani prosecutors association, and must take the bar exam. There are advantages to being a prosecutor but the collegium is very corrupt and often refuses to apprentice new students or hold bar exams. LAC is staffed by two prosecutors who apprentice around 15 young lawyers. The goal is to open up the collegium to reform the legal profession

Second, we have a travelling lawyers program. This program sends our LAC lawyers to the regions to provide legal assistance to the poor people outside of the capital. There are few lawyers in the regions. I am going with the lawyers this weekend to the city of Quba.

Third, we have many legal education programs. Street law for children, curriculum reform for law schools, and continuing education classes for practicing lawyers are provided by ABA. Right now this program isn’t doing much since most schools are closed during the summer. However, they are in the midst of distributing new legal textbooks and planning summer street law programs.

Fourth, ABA works closely with the newly formed Women’s Bar Association in Azerbaijan. ABA is very concerned with the strengthening the role of women lawyers in Azerbaijan. Thus, ABA provides support to the WBA leadership and provides things like English conversation partners for WBA members. Last week, we had a mock trial to discuss women’s rights issues in the office.

Finally, we have a criminal law division. My officemate, Aynur, is the head of the criminal law program. However, she is leaving ABA soon to get an L.L.M degree (masters of law) from a university in Norway. To be honest I don’t know what the criminal law program does substantively. The goal of the program is to fight corruption and injustice but I’m not sure what practical things ABA is doing to accomplish that goal. It must be doing a lot though because Aynur stays on the phone all day every day.

So that is what ABA does. Now, you may ask: what does Todd do for this legal machine? Well, I have worked on about four projects since I have been here. My big project which I started on my first day was related to Labor law. A staff attorney in our office, Barbara, wanted to develop a seminar on gender inequalities in Azerbaijan in the field of employment. My task was to find and read all the sources of labor law in Azerbaijan including laws passed by the legislature, decrees of the president, all the governmental agency rules, constitutional provisions, decisions of the Constitutional court, human rights reports, etc. Then I had to develop a memorandum for Barbara that explained exactly what the situation was for women workers in Azerbaijan. In short the situation is similar to women workers in the US in the 1970’s. Labor law is designed to “protect” women in Azerbaijan by not allowing them to work strenuous (read: lucrative) jobs in fields like construction, oil, or even bread making! It was very interesting and allowed me to prepare for taking Labor Law at Vanderbilt because I got to read the entire 300+ section Labor code of Azerbaijan and summarize in detail. It was cool to see the vestiges of Soviet rule here in how the government is set up.

My second project related to international relations. Our country director, Dave, asked me to find all the treaties that Azerbaijan is a party to and then to summarize and explain the important ones to him. This has been an ongoing project which has become, to be honest, daunting. Azerbaijan has membership in tons of important international organizations which sign agreements all the time. Sifting through the hundreds of treaties, pacts, protocols, agreements, and executive agreements that Azerbaijan has signed has taken much longer than I anticipated. I feel like maybe I shouldn’t be too thorough though since I think the reason for the project is to see whether the office’s bootleg movie collection broke any copyright treaties.

My third project, and current nemesis, has been an overview of Shari’ha law for Dave. Shari’ha law (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Lebanon) is the third largest legal system in the world today behind common law (USA, UK, Liberia, etc) and civil law (Most of Europe). Shari’ha is not practiced in Azerbaijan. Rather, Dave wanted to know how Shari’ha ideas affected the laws of Azerbaijan and the lives of Azerbaijanis. Currently I am learning the nuances of the Jafari school of Shiite Islamic jurisprudence and the differences between property, inheritance, and family law in Islamic and Western systems. Fun!

My last project is really a bunch of small projects over the course of my time here. I have edited memos created by local staff in order to make them sound like they were written by a native English speaker. I have updated the office emergency procedure handbook. I have researched a few cases on tortious interference (Pennzoil v. Texaco!) for an attorney. Finally, I have played countless games of text twist on facebook, looked at tons of LOLcats, and followed the NBA finals from the Eastern hemisphere. My days can get pretty busy, you must understand.

In reality the work does come in spurts, so I tend to come and go from the office as I please. Some would say I own the place. Others would just say I am amazing at what I do. Others would say that I am fat...idiots. Others do sign language at me that is impossible for me to understand...fools. Sigh, it’s awesome being me.