Marilyn Zelin

Marilyn Zelin has 20 years of experience leading rule of law development programs across the Europe/Eurasia and MENA regions. Her specializations include legal profession reform, legal education reform, access to justice, alternative dispute resolution and justice sector reform. Ms. Zelin’s work with the bar ranges from founding the Croatian Women’s Bar Association in 1996 to establishing the Georgian Bar Association, the country’s first independent bar association in 2006. She promoted greater diversity in the legal profession in Macedonia and authored a Report on Diversity in the Legal Profession in the Republic of Macedonia. In Kosovo, she spearheaded the introduction of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and facilitated donor coordination and collaboration, resulting in the training and certification of the first generation of Kosovar arbitrators and mediators and establishment of pilot ADR centers. Ms. Zelin started her legal career worked on complex corporate transactions at major international law firms and transferred her skills to become the first commercial law liaison for the American Bar Association’s program in Croatia. After 20 years in the field, she is now working as a short-term consultant and has recently completed performance evaluations for three USAID supported rule of law programs.