A Return to Kosovo

After spending a week in Kosovo in December 2013, I returned to this unique country in June for eight days along with Kiran Gore from our New York office. Kiran and I participated in a USAID-funded project in Kosovo through the National Center of State Courts (NCSC). The project in Kosovo is multi-faceted, focusing on the Kosovo Chamber of Advocates (KCA) and its efforts to have an independent and competent bar of lawyers who advance the rule of law in one of the world’s youngest countries. The firm over time has been very supportive of this project through New Perimeter, and when Kiran and I came in December it was at the end of a lot of prior work done by Sheldon Krantz, Peter Lindau, Kathy Owen, Sara Andrews and many others. Thanks to the efforts of our colleagues, our firm is well known in Kosovo, and the many people we met were aware of the dedicated work of our other DLA Piper colleagues.

Our piece of the project was related to increasing the number of women and minorities in the KCA. In December, we did a great deal of fact finding to ascertain the reasons why, although Kosovo has a 50 percent graduation rate for women in law school, only about 12 percent of women take the bar and are licensed to practice law. We helped the Gender and Minority Committee of the KCA prepare a work plan to accomplish concrete strategies to enhance the ability of young women to break through the barriers to enter the legal profession. The USAID/NCSC project is scheduled to come to an end sometime in 2015, and in our fact-finding and workshop we focused on the members of the Gender and Minority Committee taking ownership of the work plan and executing the tasks in it, all in anticipation of the end of outside assistance by the project.

We were asked to return to Kosovo to check on the status of the project and the work of the Gender and Minority Committee and to participate in the KCA’s Law Day celebration. After spending a week in Kosovo in December, I thought I had seen a lot and really did not anticipate that the visit would be very different from the first week.  But Kosovo is a country of surprises and this trip was very different than the first trip.

First, with respect to the project itself, we were exposed to a different side of the KCA, which is obviously more male dominated than the Gender and Minority Committee. In participating in Law Day activities, we were able to meet prominent members of the bar and the judiciary, including two of the Supreme Court Justices of Kosovo, one of whom was a woman. In my discussions with the female Supreme Court Justice, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Kosovo has more women justices on the Supreme Court than men. We also saw that prominent members of the Bar are generally supportive of the initiatives of the Gender and Minority Committee.

The first day of the Law Day celebrations included the swearing in of new members of the Bar and of those who were embarking on a one to two year internship before they could become full members of the Bar. It was a very solemn ceremony and very meaningful to see the number of those embarking on the internship phase. It was a group of 50 people and very diverse, with women comprising at least half of the group. The number becoming fully sworn in members of the Bar was small in contrast – only seven in number -- and exclusively older men. While there is cause for optimism that so many more women and diverse people will be eligible to join the Bar as full members in another year or two, the fact that only seven were sworn in this year shows how difficult it is economically in Kosovo and how hard it is for young women to get the necessary work experience to become members of the Bar.

We found that our main Kosovo contact at NCSC who hosted us all week had decided to take the bar exam, and she was taking advantage of a new bar review class offered by prominent lawyers including the Supreme Court Justice we had met on Lawyers Day. This young woman had graduated from law school more than five years before but had never thought it was useful to take the bar exam. She now sees a reason to take the bar and to practice law, and if we are lucky, to join the work of the Gender and Minority Committee, not as a NCSC employee but as a practicing lawyer in Pristina. This reflects the real measure of success for our project.

As for other surprises, the generous spirit of the people we met overwhelmed us. They bent over backwards to show us their gratitude. When introduced by the women at meetings including the Kosovars working at the NCSC, they would call us friends. They meant it and we felt honored to be called a friend and not just an “expert” from the US.  One law professor pursing her PhD while teaching full time, whom we had met in December and corresponded with in the last six months, brought us to her home town, treated us to lunch and then gave us each a pair of slippers made by her grandmother and a rock/mineral that is native to her home town.

Another surprise was the lovely weather. December had been gray and cold while June was sunny with cool evenings, no humidity and warm days. My assumption that we had seen most of what there was to see in Kosovo was also proven wrong. We hiked in an immense city park in Pristina and we went to a beautiful monastery outside of Peja, nestled in the mountains, that was built in the 14th century. The monastery is still under the protection of NATO. We went to the city of Mitrovica where we saw a city split in half, with ethnic Serbs living on one side of the river and ethnic Albanians on the opposite side. The main bridge over the river was blocked by both groups, and the bridge meant for cars is now a pedestrian bridge that has a full time police presence. We also saw another successful election, peacefully done with the participation of numerous political parties and a high degree of interest by the electorate. I was happy to see real progress by the Gender and Minority Committee and to see a clear path forward for removing the hurdles that prevent women from succeeding as lawyers. In the end, I realized that I had just scratched the surface of the multi-faceted country of Kosovo.

Special thanks to Sara Andrews and Lisa Dewey and to New Perimeter for giving us this opportunity!