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About REAL

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The Leavitt Institute is working to partner with the Rwandan Institute of Legal Practice and Development (ILPD) to help facilitate development of the Rwandan legal system. ILPD has established an aggressive teaching schedule in which Rwandan judges and practicing legal professionals attend the ILPD campus in Nyanza, Rwanda for 18 weeks. This training results in a diploma of legal practice. That course requires a full-time commitment in class for six to eight hours per day, five days a week, for the 18 weeks.

After the training, participants spend 12 additional weeks in the field applying what they have learned at ILPD. The successful completion of the program results in a diploma oflegal practice issued by ILPD and authorized by the Rwandan government. Additionally, ILPD has developed a legislative drafting curriculum and course designed to bring greater specificity, precision, and openness to Rwandan legislation. The course, which ILPD expects to receive accredited status with the Government of Rwanda, will be geared toward legislative drafters and members of legislative bodies.The purpose of the 18 week program and the legislative drafting program is to increase the speed of development and the depth of the Rwandan legal system. TLI and ILPD desire to partner with USAID to teach its 18 week curriculum two times each year with a team-teaching arrangement between Rwandan professionals and international experts. ILPD will provide Rwandan experts, and TLI will provide American legal experts. TLI’s membership of American legal professionals is an important element for ILPD success since ILPD had not identified satisfactorily experienced international experts willing or able to team-teach the course in Rwanda.

TLI envisions a successful partnership through the following steps: First, TLI will record each lecture for inclusion in the REAL Initiative video library. This library will be owned by ILPD and will contain four separate versions of the same lecture topic. Since each class is repeated twice annually, and since each repeated class is taught by a different American legal professional, the video library will provide four perspectives for the same topic. These video lectures will be an invaluable library resource for ILPD that it will use as a teaching resource in future years without TLIinvolvement.

 

 

 

Leavitt meeting with Rwandan Supreme Court Justice Fabian Hatangimbabazi