Ex-ABA Prez Mathis Takes Break to Become CEELI Institute Exec
Former ABA President Karen Mathis is taking a one-year sabbatical from her law firm partnership in order to serve as CEO and executive director of the CEELI Institute in Prague.
Starting Sept. 1, she will be in the Czech Republic, working in her new role. Her clients at McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, where she is an estates, trusts and business lawyer in the Denver office, will be handled by the firm’s personal services practice group, McElroy Deutsch notes in a press release (PDF) about Mathis’ overseas venture.
Mathis was president of the American Bar Association in 2006-2007. In that role, she took a great interest in international rule-of-law initiatives. She is expected to help the institute expand its educational curriculum for lawyers and judges and reach out beyond the 31 countries which already have participated in the institute’s programs.
“Serving CEELI Institute for the next year gives the institute and me a chance to grow,” Mathis told ABAJournal.com via e-mail. As ABA president, “I have made friends around the world,” she writes. “Now I plan to call upon them to help the institute magnify its programming and become more well-known throughout Europe and Eurasia.”
Specifically, she plans to focus on expanding the institute’s intellectual property protection, anti-trafficking and judicial integrity programming.
Mathis is also looking forward to working with “so many of my heroes,” including former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, to name just one.
The CEELI Institute’s mission is to educate judges and lawyers on the rule of law and other fundamental legal issues, such as judicial independence and judicial integrity.
