Washington, D.C.

Angela Conway, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division, joined the ABA Rule of Law Initiative in 1993 as the director of research and special projects. She has worked on ABA ROLI’s legal reform programs throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Ms. Conway initiated the Middle East and North Africa program in 2003. She holds a B.A. in political science from Northwestern University and a J.D. from the University of Kansas. You can contact Angela Conway at angela.conway@americanbar.org.

Niki Dasarathy, Program Manager, joined ABA ROLI’s Middle East & North Africa Division in October 2012. Ms. Dasarathy currently manages programming in Jordan and Turkey. Ms. Dasarathy was most recently an associate attorney representing labor unions in New York City on labor and employment-related matters. She has also served as a United Nations Development Program researcher in democratic governance and as an international human rights fellow for the Center for Constitutional Rights. Ms. Dasarathy’s international law experience includes working in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, at the Cambodian Center for Human Rights and as an extern in the Office of the Co-Prosecutor at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. She holds a J.D. degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law and a B.A. degree from the George Washington University in journalism. You can contact Niki Dasarathy at Nikila.Dasarathy@americanbar.org.

Kimberly Riddle, Program Officer, joined ABA ROLI's Middle East & North Africa Division in February 2011 after working with the National Endowment for Democracy, where she supported the development of the organization's overall policy and strategy. For two years, she was also a program manager at a non-profit organization that serves the Vietnamese community, both domestically and internationally. There, she managed a case management program for survivors of human trafficking, torture and other trauma. Ms. Riddle received her B.A., with dual concentration in philosophy and religious studies, from the University of Virginia. She also holds a master's degree in religion, ethics and politics from Harvard University. You can contact Kimberly Riddle at kimberly.riddle@americanbar.org.

Milena Sanchez de Boado, Senior Advisor. Before joining ABA ROLI in 2012, she was a U.S. Supreme Court fellow at the Federal Judicial Center. She was one of four Supreme Court fellows selected competitively in a nation-wide competition. Prior to her fellowship, Ms. Sanchez de Boado worked at the World Bank for nearly ten years focusing on justice sector reform. This included working on lending and non-lending projects in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Africa. While at the World Bank, she worked with ministries of justice, judicial councils, judicial training institutes, bar associations and academia. Ms. Sanchez de Boado has a J.D degree and a master in public administration degree from Syracuse University’s College of Law and the Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs, respectively. Following law school, she worked for the United Nations Staff College in Turin, Italy; she also worked for the United Nations Development Program in Zimbabwe and the United Nations in New York. 

Bahrain

Carla Koffel, Program Director, Bahrain & UAE, worked with ABA ROLI in Tajikistan as a legal specialist before transitioning to her current position in Bahrain. Before joining ABA ROLI, Ms. Koffel worked predominantly on issues affecting women and children, including access to justice, juvenile justice sector reform, civil society development and trafficking in persons as country director in Tajikistan for the British non-profit organization Coram Children’s Legal Centre. She was previously assistant general counsel for the multi-national corporation Sodexo Limted in the UK and Republic of Ireland. She holds a master’s degree in international and community development, bachelor of laws and graduate diploma in applied finance.

Egypt

Terence L. Blackburn, Country Director, Egypt. After receiving his J.D. degree from Columbia University, Mr. Blackburn worked as an assistant attorney general for the state of Ohio, as a law clerk for a United States federal court judge and as a corporate law associate for two law firms in New York. He later worked as a principal, vice president and general counsel of a real estate development and syndication firm. He then became a professor of corporate and international business law at Seton Hall University School of Law, and also served for two years as the founding and acting dean of the Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University. During his tenure at Seton Hall, he was awarded a Fulbright professorship to teach at the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing. He left Seton Hall in 2000 to become dean and professor of law at Michigan State University College of Law. In 2007, he joined ABA ROLI and he has served as a legal education reform consultant in Amman, Jordan, and as the country director for both Morocco and Egypt. Between 2010 and 2012, he served first as founding dean and professor of law at the KIMEP University School of Law in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and then as vice president of academic affairs of that university. In 2012, he returned to Egypt as ABA ROLI’s country director.

Jordan

Maha Shomali, Country Director, Jordan, holds a B.A. in international relations and French from the College of Notre Dame and a J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law. She worked as a prosecutor for the Office of the State’s Attorney and as a law clerk for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Baltimore, Maryland. In Jordan, she taught legal English at the Judicial Institute before joining ABA ROLI in 2004. You can contact Maha Shomali at mshomali@aba-mideast.org.

Tzili Mor, Human Rights and Gender Specialist. Before joining ABA ROLI in Jordan, Ms. Mor served as a gender justice adviser in Afghanistan with the International Development Law Organization, where she worked with the country’s first ever Special Prosecution Unit on Violence Against Women and to promote women’s access to justice. She has also worked as acting director and law faculty at Georgetown Law’s International Women’s Human Rights Clinic and as a regional human rights specialist in Central Asia with ABA ROLI. She has experience working with UN bodies and global and local institutions on human rights, law and gender initiatives around the world. Ms. Mor has worked with myriad national and international initiatives and organizations, including Amnesty International, UNIFEM- East Africa, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the Center for Reproductive Rights and Plan International. Ms. Mor holds a B.A. degree in art history and psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles, a master of science degree in international relations from Georgetown School of Foreign Service and a J.D. and an LL.M. degrees in advocacy and international human rights law from Georgetown Law School in Washington, DC.

Libya

Kevin George, Country Director, Libya, joined ABA ROLI in 2010 as a country director in Liberia before transitioning to lead the office in Libya in 2012. His work has covered a wide variety of topics including increasing access to justice, judicial reform and legal profession reform. Prior to his tenure at ABA ROLI, he served as a country director in Vanuatu for the Peace Corps and as a legal advisor and special assistant to the president of the American Postal Workers Union. He holds an LL.M. degree in international and comparative law from the Georgetown University Law Center, a J.D. from Antioch University School of Law and a B.S. in Psychology and History from the University of Pittsburgh.

Morocco

Omar Badawi, Country Director, Morocco, most recently served as senior advisor for ABA ROLI’s Middle East and North Africa Division. He has managed rule of law programs in Algeria, Bahrain, UAE, Iraq, Yemen, Oman, Egypt and Libya. Mr. Badawi previously practiced law representing employers in labor relations and employment law matters before federal and state courts and administrative agencies. He received a J.D. from the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, an M.A. from McGill University and a B.S. from Concordia University.

Regional Program

Aline Matta, Senior Regional Advisor, has practiced law in Australia and the United States and provided technical legal assistance in the Middle East and North Africa. This work has included performing research to support of Eritrea’s claim in the arbitration of a territorial dispute with Yemen; providing legal advice to the Palestinian Negotiations Affairs Department in relation to Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations; and supporting justice sector rehabilitation in southern Iraq. Ms. Matta holds an LL.M. in international legal studies from New York University and an LL.B. from the Queensland University of Technology. Ms. Matta joined the ABA in 2005 and has served as a deputy regional director for gender programs and as co-director on several Iraq programs.You can contact Aline Matta at aline.matta@americanbar.org.

Tunisia

Catherine Dwyer, Country Director, Tunisia, has worked with ABA ROLI as regional director to Central Asia. She has served as a professor of law at Michigan State University and other universities across the globe, including the Odessa State University Institute of International Economics, and the University of International Business and Economics and the Foreign Affairs University, both in Beijing, China. She also spent 20 years as a corporate transactional lawyer on Wall Street and as general counsel of a publicly traded company. She holds an LL.M. degree in European business law from the Pallas Consortium, a J.D. from the Boston University School of Law, and an M.B.A. and a B.A. from Columbia University.

Turkey

Paul Simonett, Country Director, Turkey, has worked with ABA ROLI in Azerbaijan, the Philippines, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Libya. Previously, Mr. Simonett served as senior rule of law advisor for USAID in Jakarta, Indonesia, and supervised technical assistance programs on court reform, anti-corruption and human trafficking. Mr. Simonett practiced law in the United States and also served as an assistant attorney general in the Federated States of Micronesia. He holds a J.D. degree from Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Lisa LeSage, Senior Legal Education Specialist, joined ABA ROLI’s Istanbul office in 2011. She is a former associate dean at Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark in Portland, Oregon, where she founded and directed the Small Business Legal Clinic, directed the externship program and career services office, and taught trial advocacy and legal ethics. In 2010, she was selected as a Fulbright scholar to Chile and has served as a consultant to several law schools there. She has extensive experience in domestic and international program development, training, advocacy, access to justice issues, immigrants’ rights and civil rights. She has authored numerous articles and held leadership positions in nonprofits and bar organizations. She started her career as a legal aid farmworker attorney and, for many years, was a partner in a firm litigating civil rights and immigrants’ rights cases in state and federal courts. She is a member of the bars of the U.S. Supreme Court, 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, Federal District Court of Oregon and the Oregon State Bar. She is fluent in Spanish and can speak some French and German.

UAE

Carla Koffel, Program Director, Bahrain & UAE, worked with ABA ROLI in Tajikistan as a legal specialist before transitioning to her current position in Bahrain. Before joining ABA ROLI, Ms. Koffel worked predominantly on issues affecting women and children, including access to justice, juvenile justice sector reform, civil society development and trafficking in persons as country director in Tajikistan for the British non-profit organization Coram Children’s Legal Centre. She was previously assistant general counsel for the multi-national corporation Sodexo Limted in the UK and Republic of Ireland. She holds a master’s degree in international and community development, bachelor of laws and graduate diploma in applied finance.