Meet Our Advisors
Roya Institute is honored that its Advisory Board members are internationally well-known professors and distinguished activists. They are founders and leaders of professional institutions and worldwide networks for justice, transforming and making the legal education system more efficient, promoting human rights, and protecting the environment.
Please get acquainted with the valuable and respected members of the Institute Advisory Board:
Prof. Catherine F. Klein
Catherine F. Klein is Professor of Law at Catholic University of America and Director of the law school’s in-house clinical program. She is also Director of the Families and the Law, one of the first law school clinical programs in the U.S. designed to address the issue of domestic violence through individual representation, community outreach and education, and legislative advocacy. Professor Klein has published numerous articles and organized many workshops and trainings on the legal responses to violence against women, clinical legal education and Access to Justice. Professor Klein has served as a volunteer trainer and mentor for law professors and lawyers in Poland, Russia, Kyrgyz Republic, and other countries of the former Soviet Union, and in various countries in the Middle East. Professor Klein is a current member of the Steering Committee of the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE). She served as Chair of the Worldwide Conference Planning Committee for the 2013 Delhi conference.
Prof. Leah Wortham
Leah Wortham is Professor Emerita of Law at The Catholic University of America (CUA) in Washington, D.C. Since 1995, she has taught, presented, or consulted in 34 countries regarding legal profession reform, clinical education, teaching legal ethics, and legal education generally. For 16 years, she has directed an American Law certificate program and LLM, which CUA offers in cooperation with Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. She is an editor and author of Learning from Practice: A Text for Legal Experiential Education (3rd ed. 2016).
Professor Wortham has served as Chair of the Rules of Professional Conduct Review Committee and the Legal Ethics Committee of the DC Bar, which has more than 100,000 members. She has worked with many non-profit organizations and foundations including the Global Alliance for Justice Education since its founding in 1999 and for seven years as an International Scholar with the Academic Fellows Program funded by the Higher Education Program of the Open Society Foundation.
Prof. Lee Arbetman
Lee has made Street Law his life’s work. After earning an M. Ed. (University of Massachusetts) and a J.D. (George Washington University Law School), Street Law presented an ideal occupational combination of teaching and law.
Lee came to Street Law in its infancy, helping expand it from a local program in four high schools to a global program active in all 50 U.S. states and more than 40 countries. Among his many important contributions to Street Law are co-authoring our flagship textbook, Street Law: A Course in Practical Law, and developing our Legal Diversity Pipeline Programs and the Supreme Court Summer Institute for Teachers.
Lee has been an active member and former chair of the citizenship committee of the National Council for the Social Studies. He has been honored with the American Bar Association’s Isidore Starr Award and was an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center.
Prof. Leni Widi Mulyani
Director of Clinical Legal Education Program
Faculty Of Law, Pasundan University, Indonesia
My name Leni, currently I work as a law teacher and Street Law Clinician at Faculty of Law Pasundan University. I have been run the clinic since 2007, started as the program officer and now, I am the Director of Clinical Legal Education Program both for extracurricular and mandatory classes for 2 credits. I have been joining with various communities particularly poor, marginalized and underrated groups in giving free legal education, legal literacy and legal consultation. My work area is not only in west java but also Indonesia and International scope. In 2011-2013, the first cross borders clinic (Indonesia-Malaysia) was established; this clinic helped Indonesian migrant workers who work in Malaysia gain their legal knowledge. Recently, I collaborate with inst
itutions like children with disabilities, former sex workers, teenagers who experiencing the unwanted pregnancy, and Bandung Legal Aid.
Prof. Lisa Radtke Bliss
Professor Bliss is Clinical Professor at Georgia State University College of Law. She is Associate Dean of Experiential Education and Clinical Programs and Co-director of the Interdisciplinary Health Law Partnership Legal Services Clinic, where she teaches law and medical students together to help both professions address the social determinants of health. Her scholarship focuses on clinical legal education, curriculum design, clinical legal education in developing countries, and on medical legal partnerships. She is a frequent presenter at U.S. and international conferences. She has collaborated with law teachers in several countries, including service as an international clinician in residence in Thailand and as a teacher in the Czech Republic where she was awarded a Fulbright Distinguished Chair. She has held leadership roles in both U.S. and international organizations devoted to legal education and justice, and has received awards for her contributions to clinical legal education and to her university.
Dr. Louk Andrianos
World Council of Churches (WCC) Consultant on the care for Creation, sustainability and climate justice
Dr. Louk A. Andrianos was born in Madagascar in 1969. After his Master’s Degree in Hydrology (University Libre of Brussels), he received his PhD. from the Technical University of Crete, specializing in Sustainable Development Sciences. With a Master’s Degree in Plant Molecular Biology from the University of Crete, he excels in astrobiology and eco-theology. He started his university career at Simon Fraser University in Canada. He has worked at the Foundation for Research and Technology (FORTH) and at the Orthodox Academy of Crete (OAC) as scientific advisor and Head of the Institute of Theology and Ecology. He is the founder of a series of environmental books on “Ecological Theology and Environmental Ethics” (ECOTHEE) and “Sustainable Alternatives for Poverty Reduction and Ecological Justice” (SAPREJ). He is member of many environmental organizations and collaborates with the World Council of Churches (WCC) as Consultant on care for Creation, sustainability and climate justice.
Prof. Mizanur Rahman
PhD, LLM (1st Class Honors), DICL (Double), Dip. In Journalism, MCL (Cum Laude), PGD (Distinction) in (Legal Studies)
He is an educationist and currently the senior most faculty member at the Faculty of Law, University of Dhaka. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Law and Human Rights, University of Asia Pacific, where he plays a crucial role in teaching and academic development. He has previously served as the Chair of the National Human Rights Commission, Bangladesh (NHRC-BD) for a maximum of two tenures (2010-2016). Professor Rahman has contributed to the development of legal education in Bangladesh throughout his career by research and experiential learning projects. He has been teaching in the country since 1985. He was a Visiting Professor to Umeo University, Sweden, the University of Oslo, Norway, Kathmandu School of Law, Nepal, Tver State University, Russia, etc. He was awarded the Best Law Teacher in South Asia Award in 2010 jointly by the Society of Indian Law Firms (SILF) and the Menon Institute of Legal Advocacy Training (MILAT). He is a recipient of the Mother Teresa Gold Medal for Peace-2010, Nelson Mandela Gold Medal-2012, Mahatma Gandhi Peace Award-2011, Michael Modhushudan Dutta Award-2012 for promotion of Human Rights, among others.
Prof. Richard L. Roe,
Retired Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center
He received his J.D. degree in 1977 from the University of Maine School of Law and A.B. from Yale College in 1969, majoring in Latin American Studies.
Professor Roe directed the Street Law program from 1983-2018, in which law students teach semester-long elective courses in District of Columbia high schools, correctional settings and drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers. Street Law employs innovative, interactive teaching methodology that models due process of law and fundamental constitutional and democratic values. Professor Roe now applies this methodology in a variety of educational settings, including trainings of university faculty and PhD students, criminology professionals, law school clinical and experiential programs, and early childhood programs in the US and internationally.
Prof. Sayed Hassan Akhlaq
Sayed Hassan Akhlaq is a professor of Philosophy and Religion at Coppin State University and Northern Virginia Community College. He is a philosopher, a religious scholar, and a human right advocate, involved in dialogue among civilizations, the fields of intra and inter faith, and social justice warriors. He contributes to academia by conducting research and teaching and to the public sphere by delivering public talks and publishing on a great number of Op-Eds on Huffington Post, Open Democracy, BBC Persian, and Islamicity websites.
Dr. Akhlaq worked as a research fellow at Boston University (2017-2018), Princeton University (2017), George Washington University (2013-2016), and The Catholic University of America (2012-2017). His major publication in English “The Secular and the Sacred: Complementary and/or Conflictual?” was co-edited by John Hogan and published by the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (2017).
He worked as the chancellor of Gharjistan University, branch of Farah-Afghanistan in 2011; he acted as an academic advisor of Afghanistan Academy of Sciences in 2010; He also is affiliated with American Academy of Religion, American Philosophical Association, American Association of University Professors, American Councils for the Study of Islamic Societies, and Center for the Study of Islam and the Middle East.
Prof. Shuvro Prosun Sarker
“Shuvro Prosun Sarker is an Indian national and teaches in the Maharashtra National Law University, Nagpur, India. He specializes in refugee law, humanitarian law and human rights clinic. He is also an Assistant Editor of Asian Journal of Legal Education.
Zohra Rasekh
The founder and CEO of Global Watch Group.
She is an international expert on gender, health, and human rights, one of the world’s leading spokeswomen for human rights and gender equality in Afghanistan.
Prior to the Global Watch Group, she served as an independent human rights expert and Vice President for the United Nations Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). In this post, she was elected by 148 United Nations member states to the CEDAW Committee.
Before nomination to CEDAW Committee, Zohra Rasekh dedicated 7 years of her professional life to the improvement of human rights and women’s situation in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Between 2003-2010 at the invitation of the interim government of Afghanistan, she established and led a new addition in charge of international monitoring and evaluation of human rights and women’s issues.
She holds a master’s degree in public health from George Washington University, Washington DC; and Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Women and Public Policy a certificate on Women and Security. She has published numerous articles for journals as well as books on the topic of women, human rights, terrorism, and public health.
