mbfitzmahan

In 1974 I received a J.D. (Doctor of Jurisprudence) from the University of Oregon and was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Washington from 1974-77 representing the Department of Natural Resources in environmental and land use law.

In 1997 I left private practice to teach in Europe. As a Visiting Professor of Law at Lesa Ukrainian Volyn National University in Lutsk, Ukraine, I taught comparative law from 1997 to 1998. Since the Ukrainian legal system was new following independence in 1991, I conducted research on the system by observing trials and conducting interviews with 30 lawyers, judges, prison wardens, and political leaders. Based on my qualitative study of the Ukrainian judicial system, I published “Vestiges of Soviet Control Mechanisms in the District Court of Ukraine,” (2001) 7 Columbia University Journal of East European Law.

I was a Professor of Law at Concordia International University in Tallinn, Estonia from 2000-2003 teaching international law. In 2003 I went to Africa and worked for the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission and conducted qualitative research on the history of the international crimes committed during the 10 year war.

From 1997 to 2012, I traveled in Ukraine, Estonia, Georgia, and Russia and took 155 hours of interviews of non-Russian dissidents of the Soviet Union. My Ukrainian blog is supported by that 25 years of research.