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The Russian American Rule of Law Consortium (RAROLC) is a group of legal communities working together to develop legal institutions and the rule of law in both the United States and Russia. Each community is comprised of volunteer legal professionals from an American state who have partnered with professionals from a Russian region.
RAROLC improves the capacity of local Russian legal institutions to implement reform. The organization has been instrumental in the development of bar associations and judicial and lawyer education programs. It has provided effective training in the use of technology, initiated the adoption of alternative dispute resolution methods, and has trained legal professionals to implement reforms effectively and to bring justice to citizens. The citizen engagement model of RAROLC can be used for any reform activities, for example in modernizing the curriculum of Russian law schools, bringing technology to courts or in learning the adversary system for the adjudication of criminal cases.
RAROLC is unique in that it depends almost exclusively on the volunteer activities of legal professionals, and works primarily at the regional level. Programs are identified based on the needs of a particular Russian legal community, and steering committees from both the American state and Russian region work together to determine how these programs are chosen. Steering committees are comprised of judges, lawyers, law professors and other legal professionals in the partnership areas.
RAROLC, Inc. is structured as a not-for-profit corporation with a governing board comprised of one representative from each RAROLC state. The board determines how resources available to the organization will be allocated to the partnerships. Then each state's local steering committee determines how that money will be spent, and recruits legal experts for the chosen programs. If, for example, a state is sponsoring a seminar on jury trials in the partner Russian region, the committee might recruit a prosecutor, criminal defense lawyer, criminal case trial judge and a jury administrator to participate in that seminar.
Additionally, RAROLC has an ongoing relationship with the Open World Leadership Center to sponsor ten-day intensive visits by members of Russian legal communities to partnership states. These delegations increase understanding between Russia and the United States and support Russia's efforts to strengthen democratic reforms.
RAROLC partnerships include: Vermont and the Republic of Karelia; Maine and Archangelsk Oblast; Maryland and Leningrad Oblast; Western New York and Novgorod Oblast; New Hampshire and Vologda Oblast; Massachusetts and Tomsk Oblast:Massachusetts and Rostov Oblast: Connecticut and Pskov Oblast; Alaska and Khabarovsk Krai; Oregon and Sakhalin Oblast: Washington State and Primorsky Krai, and Oklahoma and Ulyanovsk Oblast.
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