Manatt Partner Co-Chairs Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan

November 22, 2011 – Manatt’s Thomas J. Umberg, a partner in the firm’s Litigation Division, has been appointed the new Private Co-Chair of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) for Justice Reform in Afghanistan. The United States Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs formally announced the PPP’s new leadership at a ceremony held at the Department of State in Washington, D.C., on November 21, 2011. 

The PPP was launched in December 2007 and brings together the Department of State and the U.S. legal community to work to advance the rule of law in Afghanistan. Over the past four years, it has funded small-scale, high-impact projects promoting women’s rights, access to justice, legal aid, and professional development for the next generation of Afghan legal scholars.

This year, Umberg and his co-chair, Deputy Secretary of State Thomas R. Nides, plan to endow a Rule of Law Chair at Herat University in Afghanistan, who will work to educate Afghan legal scholars on international legal standards and practices to advance development of a democratic and prosperous Afghan state based on the rule of law.

In addition to this position, Umberg serves as Chairman of the California High Speed Rail Authority and is a colonel in the Army Reserve. He has served as a war crimes prosecutor and Chief, Anti-Corruption in Afghanistan for the U.S. military. He has served three terms in the California Legislature and was nominated by the President and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Deputy Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in 1997.

Learn more about the Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan here.