IBA Foundation

Robert A. Stein is a Trustee of the IBA Foundation, a position he has held since 2008. Professor Stein has been active in the IBA for almost 30 years. He has been Co-Chair of the Rule of Law Action Group (2011-2014); Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary-Treasurer of the Professional and Public Interest Division (2004-2010); and Deputy Secretary General, North America (1994-2004). Professor Stein has also been active in other bar associations, serving as Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of the American Bar Association for 12 years.

Professor Stein is the Everett Fraser Professor of Law and Distinguished Global Professor at the University of Minnesota. He teaches a seminar on the Rule of Law and a course on the Supreme Court of the United States.

After 64 years in law practice and government service, Philip F. Zeidman retired in 2022 from the Washington DC office of DLA Piper. He had brought the law firm he founded into a DLA Piper predecessor firm 25 years earlier. At the close of his career, he received Who’s Who Legal’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Zeidman is an Honorary Life Member of the IBA and formerly served as President of the IBA Foundation. He is a Founding Trustee of the London-based Eyewitness to Atrocities Trust and has been a member of the Council of the Section of Business Law and chaired several IBA Committees. He specialized in international practice, with a special focus on franchising and distribution, representing both US and foreign companies in 35 countries and advising a number of governmental bodies. He was the first chairman of the ABA Antitrust Section’s Committee on Franchising and the chair of the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s Franchising Law Committee. He served as General Counsel of the International Franchise Association throughout his career and Who’s Who Legal named him Global Franchise Lawyer of the Year for the first 9 years that award was given. Zeidman served as a legal officer in the Air Force and as a Trial Attorney for the Federal Trade Commission. When appointed General Counsel to the Small Business Administration at age 30, he was the youngest chief legal officer in the US Government. Before entering private practice, he served as Special Assistant to the Vice President of the United States. He was also a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States and of the President’s Advisory Committee to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He is a member of the New Perimeter Advisory Committee and is a Founder of the Appleseed Foundation. He has written extensively, and several of his books and other works have been published in other languages. His paper, “With the Best of Intentions: Observations on the International Regulation of Franchising.”, based on his Stanford Law School presentation, (available for viewing on YouTube), earned him the Burton Award (American Bar Association/ Library of Congress) for excellence in writing. He has also spoken widely, including at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Zeidman graduated from Yale College, where he was named Scholar of the First Rank and Chairman of his Class Council. He received his law degree from Harvard and also studied at the Harvard Business school. He has served as trustee or member of the advisory board at components of several institutions of higher learning, including Yale and Duke Universities.

David R. Hardy has been the Treasurer and a member of the Board of the IBA Foundation since 2018. For many years, he has been involved in the IBA Taxes Committee including have served two years as Chair of that committee. In addition to his IBA activities, Mr. Hardy has for many years practiced corporate tax law with particular emphasis on the taxation of energy companies and the use of transactional tax insurance to facilitate reorganizations and acquisitions. Mr. Hardy is the Former President of the International Tax Institute in New York and has been a member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Tax Section since 2003.

Alexandra (Xander) A.K. Meise has served as the Secretary of the IBA Foundation since 2019. She is an Associate Teaching Professor at the Northeastern University School of Law where her research and teaching focus on issues of rule of law, sovereignty, statecraft, human rights, and national security at the intersection of public and private international law. She is particularly interested in the legal and governance challenges raised by the evolving threats of climate change. Prof. Meise’s professional experience spans five continents and includes a panoply of law and public policy endeavors protecting, preserving, and strengthening rule of law domestically and internationally. Before pivoting full-time to academia, she was in practice where she served as counsel in many international disputes before international and U.S. legal mechanisms and fora and advised sovereigns and international entities in rule of law reform and sustainable investment strategy. She has also worked for international criminal tribunals, the US Department of State, and in international political development. A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and Dartmouth College, Prof. Meise has also served as the inaugural Visiting Senior Fellow and Climate and Energy Security for the Truman Center for National Policy and a fellow to the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (a joint center of Columbia Law School and Columbia Climate School). In addition to the IBA Foundation, she is involved in a number of initiatives to increase diversity in the legal profession and security and foreign policy spaces, including the Truman National Security Project and the American Society of International Law. (For the 2023-24 academic year, Prof. Meise has been seconded to the US Army War College as a Visiting Professor of National Security Studies in the School of Strategic Landpower’s Department of National Security and Strategy.)

Homer Moyer, a member of the IBA Foundation Board, has also served as Chair of the IBA Rule of Law Forum and Chair of the IBA Anti-Corruption Committee. He also chaired the initial IBA’s Anti-Corruption Conferences now held annually at the OECD and has moderated a series of Rule of Law Town Halls sponsored by the IBA Foundation. He is a past chair of the International Section of the IBA, co-founded and chaired the ABA’s Central and East European Law Inititive (CEELI) and founded the CEELI Institute in Prague. A Senior Counsel at Miller & Chevalier in Washington, DC, Mr. Moyer founded the firm’s International Department, was vice-chair of the firm, and one of the country’s leading Foreign Corrupt Practices Act attorneys. https://www.millerchevalier.com/professional/homer-e-moyer. A political appointee in both Democratic and Republican Administrations, he served as Deputy General Counsel, Counsellor to the Secretary, and General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Commerce.

John Morrison is an emeritus trustee of the IBA Foundation who has served on the Foundation’s Board since 1989. He is a retired partner of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. Having joined the IBA in 1987, in 2002 he was elected an Honorary Life Member of the IBA and its Council in recognition of his work as chairman of the Legal Education Committee and later as chairman of the General Professional Practice Committee. In his GPP Committee role, he organized and led conferences for developing country lawyers and their associations throughout the world. Mr. Morrison is a Distinguished Friend of Oxford and president emeritus of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars. In 1994 he was appointed an Honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Jon Grouf is a trustee of the IBA Foundation. He has been involved with the IBA Foundation for over 15 years. Mr. Grouf also has served as Treasurer of the IBA, as Chair of its Legal Practice Division, and as a member of the IBA Management Board for the past decade. He is a partner in the New York office of the law firm Duane Morris LLP. His work is concentrated on corporate and international tax matters.

Vivek Krishnamurthy is a Trustee of the IBA Foundation and an Associate Professor at the University of Colorado Law School, where he directs the Samuelson-Glushko Technology Law & Policy Clinic (TLPC).

Vivek’s teaching, scholarship, and clinical legal practice focus on the complex regulatory and human rights-related challenges that arise in cyberspace. He advises governments, activists, and companies on the human rights impacts of new technologies and is a frequent public commentator on emerging technology and public policy issues.

Vivek was previously the Samuelson-Glushko Professor of Law at the University of Ottawa. He is a Rhodes Scholar and clerked for the Hon. Morris J. Fish of the Supreme Court of Canada upon his graduation from Yale Law School. He is currently a Faculty Associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and an alternate member of the Global Network Initiative’s Board of Directors.

Joyce Williams is an accomplished legal professional with a dynamic presence in the legal and philanthropic spheres. As the Managing Attorney at Armooh-Williams, PLLC, her expertise encompasses overseeing legal operations and strategic planning for international trade, immigration matters, and corporate governance. Her leadership ensures effective team management and compliance within the firm. With a dedication to global rule of law initiatives and an unwavering commitment to community growth, Joyce serves as an active trustee of the International Bar Foundation, a board member of the American Bar Association's African Law Council and the Doña Gracia Center for Diplomacy in Israel underscores her. Additionally, she is a member of the John Carroll Society fostering meaningful connections. Beyond the legal sphere, Joyce is actively engaged in entrepreneurial and philanthropic ventures; she is also the founder of Hazina Equity Partners, a private equity firm, iSoka LLC, a sports agency, and the Armooh-Williams Foundation. Through the foundation's initiatives, she collaborates with women entrepreneurs worldwide, offering them invaluable insights into business fundamentals and best practices for compliance. She also provides pro bono immigration services through Hispano Progreso, exemplifying her dedication to positively impacting immigrant communities. With a commitment to driving economic growth and fostering integration across Africa, Joyce is an executive council member of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Policy Network and the African Globalized Investment Forum. Joyce has been recognized by the American Bar Association for her program addressing human trafficking and promoting diversity within the legal profession and honored by the AfCFTA Policy Network with a trade hub for her pivotal role in driving positive change across Africa.

Linda Carter has been a trustee of the IBA Foundation since 2019. She is also serving as a member of the Advisory Committee for the IBA War Crimes Committee, and has worked over the years on projects with the IBA, such as drafting a moot court problem and providing legal analysis to Ukraine. She is a Professor Emerita at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, with expertise in domestic and international criminal law and procedure. Prior to academia, Professor Carter was a trial attorney in the honors program of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and then a criminal defense attorney with the Salt Lake City Legal Defender Association, where she tried cases ranging from DUI to murder.

Professor Carter has lectured and researched international criminal law issues in multiple venues, including Rwanda, Cambodia, Tanzania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and The Hague. From 2003-2015, she worked with the Brandeis Institute for International Judges, which convened meetings of judges from all major international tribunals, including criminal, human rights, law of the sea, and the International Court of Justice. In recent years, Professor Carter served as a consultant to the defense team in the Ongwen case at the International Criminal Court. She is also a member of the International Board of Advisors for the McGeorge Global Center and an elected member of the American Law Institute.

Maggie Baingana is a Trustee on the IBA Foundation Board of Trustees, a role she has held since 2021. She has previously served as a council member for the East Africa Law Society and still serves on the rule of law committee for this large regional bar. Ms. Baingana also serves as the Founder and Managing Partner of Shield Associates law firm in Kigali. She has broad and extensive experience in corporate governance and commercial/business transactions. Her sector specialties include litigating matters before courts and arbitral tribunals, guiding clients to find quick solutions, designing large-scale contracts, and advising on the best way of closing business deals in compliance with applicable laws in Rwanda and the region. She is member of Mackrell International, one of the world’s largest networks of independent law firms which brings together over 4,500 lawyers in 170 offices across 60 countries. Private practice aside, she has over 21 years of experience working for government and international organizations in the justice, health, and education sectors. She has worked with Love Justice International’s Program on anti-human trafficking in Rwanda and her office has facilitated efforts to identify, report and reintegrate survivors of human trafficking. She serves as an independent director on the Ecobank Rwanda Plc board and is member of the Rwanda Leader's Fellowship. She is passionate about mentoring young women professionals to maximize their potential and to live a balanced life while making tangible contributions to their communities. She holds a Master of Laws degree in Government Law and Public Policy (LLM) from the University of the Pacific-McGeorge School of Law in California.

As Executive Director of the International Bar Association (IBA), Mark Ellis leads the foremost international organization of bar associations, law firms and individual lawyers in the world. The IBA comprises more than 190 national bar associations, major international law firms and 80,000 members worldwide.

Prior to joining the IBA, he spent ten years as the first Executive Director of the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI), a project of the American Bar Association (ABA). Providing technical legal assistance to twenty-eight countries in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union and to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, CEELI remains one of the most extensive international pro bono legal assistance projects ever undertaken by the US legal community.

Mark served as Legal Advisor to the Independent International Commission on Kosovo, chaired by Justice Richard J. Goldstone and was appointed by OSCE to advise on the creation of Serbia’s War Crimes Tribunal. He was actively involved with the Iraqi High Tribunal and also acted as legal consultant to the defense team of Nuon Chea at the Cambodian War Crimes Tribunal (ECCC). He is leading the IBA’s assistance to Ukraine.

In 2013, Dr Ellis was admitted to the List of Assistants to Counsel of the International Criminal Court. In 2015, he was appointed Chair of the UN-created Advisory Panel on Matters Relating to Defence Counsel of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (previously to the ICTY and ICTR).

As the Director of the International Bar Association’s North America office in Washington, D.C., Michael liaises primarily with members of the legal profession, bar associations, U.S. governmental bodies, international organizations (i.e., United Nations, World Bank), and human rights organizations. Public service projects on which he is active include civic education initiatives on the rule of law and efforts to educate governments and the public about North Korean human rights. (A 12-minute version of a documentary the IBA produced on North Korea – “A Living Hell: Crimes Against Humanity in North Korean Detention Centers and the Quest for Accountability” – can be found here.)

Prior to joining the IBA, Michael spent nearly two decades working with human rights defenders, lawyers, judges, and civil society organizations to promote the rule of law with the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative (ABA ROLI), and a predecessor entity, the ABA Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative (CEELI). During his tenure at CEELI, he lived and worked in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and Moscow, Russia, before returning to the U.S. to direct CEELI’s programs in the former Soviet Union, later serving as CEELI’s Deputy Director. In 2007, he helped spearhead the consolidation of the ABA’s various international development programs into a new entity, ABA ROLI. As ABA ROLI’s Deputy Director, Michael helped oversee rule of law programs in 60 countries.

Michael is the author of several articles and book chapters on the rule of law, including two chapters in The Rule of Law in the 21st Century. He is on the advisory boards of Street Law, the World Bank Compact & Forum, and the Himalayan Climate and Science Institute.

Raquel E. Aldana joined UC Davis in 2017 to serve as the inaugural Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Diversity with a law faculty appointment. She returned to full time law teaching in 2020 and co-directs the Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies.

Aldana is a graduate of Arizona State University (earning a bachelor’s degree in English and another in Spanish) and Harvard Law School. She was a professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, before joining the McGeorge School of Law faculty in 2009.

Aldana brings extensive experience and commitment to the rule of law and human rights with a particular focus in Latin America. After private practice, she worked as a human rights lawyer for the Center for Justice & International Law (CEJIL) where she elevated emblematic cases involving gross human rights abuses to the Inter-American Commission and Court on Human Rights. While in academia, Aldana has remained deeply involved in the Latin American region to advance human rights and the rule of law.

She has worked in projects and programs such as in Nicaragua and gender violence, Guatemala and transitional justice, Chile and criminal justice, and Colombia and refugees. In 2008, she founded and directed the Inter-American Program at the McGeorge School of Law to prepare bilingual and inter-cultural lawyers in the representation of Spanish speaking clients in the US or abroad. The program included a fully bilingual and inter-cultural law program in Antigua, Guatemala and placements in Chile, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. She has served for nearly a decade as a Council Member and was elected as Chair in 2020 to the Latin American and Caribbean Council of the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative (ROLI). From 2006 to 2007, Aldana was a Fulbright Scholar in Guatemala studying transitional justice and the role of victims to ameliorate impunity in criminal prosecutions. In 2022, she was elected to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Russell DaSilva is the Vice President of the IBA Foundation, a position that he has held since 2019. He became a trustee of the Foundation in 2008.

Mr. DaSilva has been involved with the International Bar Association for more than thirty years. He held several officer positions in the IBA Banking Law Committee, culminating in his service as Co-Chair of that Committee in 2016 and 2017. Today he continues to serve on the Senior Advisory Board of the Banking Law Committee, and also sits on the American Bar Association/International Bar Association Join Task Force on Cross-Border Legal Opinions.

Mr. DaSilva is Senior Counsel in the New York office of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. He handles financing transactions, with a particular focus on the financing of international trade. His lender-side clients include banks, export credit agencies, and non-traditional participants in the trade finance market. He also represents numerous corporate clients in their bilateral and syndicated lending transactions. Mr. DaSilva sits on Pillsbury’s Opinion Committee, UCC Committee, and Diversity & Inclusion Committee, and he designs and teaches numerous training programs for finance attorneys.

In addition to his service to the IBA Foundation, Mr. DaSilva is proud to serve as a trustee or as a senior advisory board member of several other not-for-profits and NGOs, including Farm Africa USA Inc. (President) and the Princeton Blairstown Center. He also is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mr. DaSilva holds a B.A., summa cum laude, from Princeton University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Tim Powers is Senior Counsel at Haynes and Boone where he has practiced for over 40-years. He served as the firm’s Managing Partner from 2015-2020, during which time the firm developed its 2025 long-term strategic plan, had revenue growth of more than 25%, and expanded into six new locations, including London. Tim also led the development of the firm's international practice, as well as its global geographic growth.

Chambers USA has named Tim a Senior Statesperson in Texas and one of America’s leading lawyers for banking and finance. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Within the IBA, Tim has served as the President of the IBA Foundation (where he is now an Emeritus Trustee), Chair of the Constitution Committee, Co-Chair of the North American Regional Forum, Chair of the Project Finance Subcommittee of the Banking Law Committee, a member of the LPD Council, a Deputy Secretary General, and a member of the Nominations Committee. In recognition of his contribution to the work of the IBA, Tim was elected as an Honorary Life Member of the IBA in 2021.

Tim is an honors graduate in Political Science from the University of California at Los Angeles (1977), where he was a 4-year varsity oarsman on the UCLA crew. He received his law degree from the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law (1980) and was named a distinguished alumnus of the law school in 2020.

Hansel Pham is the President of the IBA Foundation, a role in which he has served since 2019. Mr. Pham has been involved with the IBA Foundation for more than a decade. Prior to becoming President, he served as Secretary and as co-Chair of IBA North American Regional Forum. Mr. Pham is also involved in a number of additional international and arbitral organizations. He has also served as Chair of the DC Bar Attorney/Client Arbitration Board and as Chairman of the Board for a local non-profit organization.

Mr. Pham is also the Office Executive Partner for the Washington, D.C. office of White & Case. Mr. Pham has served as counsel in high-stakes international disputes, including before U.S. courts and in investment and commercial arbitrations under a variety of arbitral rules and institutions around the world. Mr. Pham is one of the leaders of White & Case’s Vietnam Country Practice. He also heads White & Case’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Group. Mr. Pham has served as a co-Chair of the Firm’s Asian Affinity Network and was a founding Director and Officer of the Vietnamese-American Bar Association of the Greater Washington, DC Area.