Dr. Stanga is a Juris Doctor and Ph.D. in Law and in Social Sciences. She is Senior Technical Advisor for the LAC Division of the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative, Washington, D.C., with expertise in institutional strengthening and capacity building of judiciaries, mainly through judicial education.
She has been involved in the improvement of the judicial system and judicial reform since 1986. She has worked in the Americas, in Europe and in Africa. Strategic planning, effectiveness, quality, and a results-based strategy have marked her work. She has led the process to design and implement different tools in order to achieve these results.
Between 1986 and 1987 she designed a tool to identify the causes that led to the reversal of judicial decisiones, and to measure the quality of judicial decisions. This tool has been used by several judicial shools since the early 90’s in order to identify the actual training needs, and to measure results and the impact of the training in an objective way. She has also led the process to introduce the occupational profile of the ideal judge or justice, as well as the creation of best practices manuals, as a few examples of direct and practical ways to contribute to the capacity building and strengthening of the judiciaries.
She has more than 30 years of international experience in judicial education, and in the training of prosecutors and public defenders. Dr. Stanga has led the reoganizational process of five judicial training institutes, she has led the creation of 21 judicial schools, and she has trained their leadership and staff.
She is recognized as the author of what has been internationally called “a systematized model of judicial training,” aimed at assuring pertinence, effectiveness, quality, the measurement of results and the impact of the training. It is an integral learning model (knowledge, skills and attitudes/values) focused on a competencies approach, and based on strategic planning, andragogy, the specifics of judicial training, and the requirements of “effective” judicial education. She has been implementing the 4 levels of the Kirkpatrick evaluation model since the early 90’s, together with other evaluation methods, in order to measure results and the impact of the educational activities and judicial reform programs.
Dr. Stanga was the vice president of the Federation of Judicial Schools of the Americas for 3 consecutive periods.
She has also created, implemented and/or directed different training programs at the request of several Supreme Courts of Justice and of judges associations in the Americas.
She has been invited twice as a judicial fellow at the Federal Judicial Center, in Washington D.C., the institution in charge of research and of the training of federal judges and court personnel. She has worked with and for the Center since the mid 1990’s on several occasions, mainly devoted to the design, coordination and implementation of international program exchanges and seminars.
As a professor at one of Argentina’s major universities, in 1998 she led the creation and desgined a judicial Masters program for sitting judges, the fourth program of the kind in the Americas, which she directed for 10 years.
Dr. Stanga has contributed to the creation of the “Mesa de Decanos”/ Law School Deans Association in the Dominican Republic, an NGO composed of all Law School Deans in the country, aimed at sharing experiencies and advancing legal education in the country, and a pioneer and advanced institution of the kind in Latin America.
She teaches judicial leadership and judicial ethics. She has led the creation of judicial codes of conduct. She is the author of books and articles in her area of expertise. She has directed several masters and Phd theses. She has received several international awards.