The Greening of Roger Pugh
After I retired early – became of counsel – on Jan. 1, 1993, it can be said in retrospect that I changed careers to international development – except for three exciting years in local development with the NYC Law Department (Check out the sites.)
From May 1993 to August 1995, my wife and I served together as small business consultant Peace Corps volunteers –www.peacecorps.gov – in Mariano Roque Alonzo Paraguay, advising a savings and loan cooperative on its lending program and, as Vice Presidents, a significant non-governmental organization (ngo) on how to avoid bankruptcy (It did).
From August 1996 to January 2000, I was involved in local development as an Assistant Corporation Counsel for the City of New York – www.nyc.gov/law – involved in economic development (real estate, including Yankee, Mets and Tennis Stadiums, privatization (attempted) of JFK and LaGuardia airports, WNYC and Coney Island Hospital) and affirmative (the City as plaintiff) litigation.
After a lifetime of being a corporate and securities lawyer (with Donovan Leisure Newton & Irvine and Edwards & Angell), on behalf of the New York City Pension Funds and as a member of the Affirmative Litigation Division of the NYC Law Department, we sued Cendant for securities fraud in a class action. Cendant settled for $3.2 billion. And our outside class action lawyers were paid much less than they wished and would have been paid under prior Securities Act class action practice
In 1998 and 1999, on two leaves from my City job, my wife and I spent three months each in Riga, Latvia and Kyiv, Ukraine as volunteer management consultants for Freedom House – www.freedomhouse.org – advising ngos – start up ngos advocating human rights, women’s rights, consumer rights and advocacy think tanks – in fundraising and short and long-term planning.
From January 2000 to April 2002, I was in Kyiv, Ukraine. First, I encouraged Ukrainians to adopt the rule of law as a volunteer trainer for civic programs for the National Democratic Institute – www.ndi.org – in projects to encourage Ukrainian ngos to follow US election and advocacy practices.
From January 2001 to April 2002, as Senior Commercial Law Advisor for US Agency for International Development – www.usaid.gov – I encouraged Ukrainian organizations to follow US accounting rules and US corporate governance practices, to privatize energy companies and to deregulate city government real estate practices. (There is more to be done in Ukraine.)
From October 2002 to October 2003, I was in Zagreb, Croatia. I was a volunteer consultant for UNHCR (UN High Commission for Refugees in Croatia) – www.unhcr.ch – assessing for sustainability several ngos funded by UNHCR which organizations provided legal assistance to refugees, returnees and internally displaced persons. I did the same for Mercy Corps www.mercycorps.org -(Refugees need lawyers.)
I also taught US Criminal Constitutional Law at the Law School of Zagreb University – http://zakon.pravo.hr. One student’s question – Do those rights apply to non-citizens?
I also conducted an evaluation for International Senior Lawyers Project – www.islp.org – ISLP of a program of the Macedonian Bar Association – www.mba.org.mk – to start a program of six legal assistance offices throughout Macedonia.
Currently I am UN Liaison for Lawyers Without Borders – www.lwob.org – and on the Advisory Board of International Senior Lawyers Project. Meanwhile I am developing another Rule of Law and Human Rights development project (and looking for a job).
Additional sites to check out:
International Career Employment Weekly – www.internationaljobs.org
Recruiting Center at DevelopmentEx.Com – www.DevelopmentEx.Com
ACT Alliance for Conflict Transformation – www.conflicttransformation.org
Financial Services Volunteer Corps – www.fsvc.org
International Executive Services Corps – www.iesc.org
