USAID program offers exposure to legal practice in Cincinnati

Published: Tuesday August 17, 2010

Front row, left to right: Sedrak Asatryan, Karapet Aghajanyan, Ovsanna Stepanyan Back row: Jan Sherbin (program manager), Marine Ghandilyan, Inessa Petrosyan, Babken Sahradyan, Arayik Papikyan, Karen Manucharyan, Arpine Melikbekyan, Armen Baghdasaryan.

Cincinnati - Cincinnati law firms and courts have worked with 10 Armenian lawyers completing a three-week Community Connections program. The USAID-funded program was designed to expose the Armenians to how American law firms operate in the context of the American legal system and to foster linkages between the Armenian lawyers and their American counterparts.

The Armenian lawyers visited five local law firms as well as courts on the county, state and federal levels. They also visited the Cincinnati Bar Association and the University of Cincinnati School of Law and its Urban Morgan Institute for Human Rights. In Ohio's capital, Columbus, they visited the Ohio State Bar Association and the Ohio Supreme Court.

Making Armenian connections, the group met with Cincinnati businessperson and former Congressional candidate David Krikorian and enjoyed hospitality at the home of Samvel and Sofik Mnatsakanian in Cincinnati and Tigran Safaryan in Columbus. The visiting lawyers stayed in Cincinnati homes and treated their home hosts to a genuine Armenian barbecue.

The topic of this Community Connections program was Independent Private Practice by Emerging Legal Professionals. The 10 lawyers in this Community Connections program work either in new law firms or in Armenia's new public defender system. With international help, Armenia is transitioning to a more democratic legal system and independent judiciary.

During the 3-week program, the group covered topics such as law firm organization and practices, technology, ethics and the role of the judiciary.

"The Armenian lawyers are intensely interested in every aspect of their counterparts' professional lives, from the nuts and bolts of running a law office to the principles and ethics of a democratic legal system," says Jan Sherbin, managing this Community Connections program for the Greater Cincinnati World Affairs Council. "We are showing them ideas they can implement immediately and also ideas they can work toward over the years."

The program is funded by USAID, with World Learning as the programming agent. As the local training organization, the World Affairs Council is designing and conducting the program, its 45th.

The broad public diplomacy goals of Community Connections are to contribute to economic and democratic reform and to promote mutual understanding in Eurasia, providing visitors broad exposure to U.S. society, helping create personal connections with Americans and advancing democratic and free-market principles in a region where these principles are still tenuous.

Community Connections participants:

Mr. Arayik Papikyan
Mr. Armen Baghdasaryan
Ms. Arpine Melikbekyan
Mr. Babken Sahradyan
Ms. Inessa Petrosyan
Mr. Karapet Aghajanyan
Mr. Karen Manucharyan
Ms. Marine Ghandilyan
Ms. Ovsanna Stepanyan
Mr. Sedrak Asatryan

Program Country                   Armenia
Program Name                     Independent Practice by Emerging Legal Professionals
Program Dates                     07/09/10 – 07/30/10