PUBLISHED:September 22, 2010

Changes in the International Studies Office

Duke Law’s International Studies Office has welcomed Oleg Kobelev to the staff as director of international career development and special projects. Kobelev joins the department during a time of transition, as Assistant Dean Jennifer Maher ’83 expands her leadership role in the office and Associate Dean Judith Horowitz prepares for a move to Washington, D.C., where she will continue to work for Duke Law.

A cultural interpreter
Kobelev joins Duke Law from the National Association of Attorneys General, where he served as tobacco counsel, supporting 52 attorneys general in enforcement and implementation of the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, which ended states’ Medicaid litigation against tobacco companies and governs payments from tobacco companies to cover states’ costs in caring for people with smoking-related illnesses.

Kobelev also has served as a staff attorney for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and as an associate with Sidley Austin in New York. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Law, where he was editor in chief of the Journal of Law and Technology.

As director of international career development and special projects, Kobelev will advise international LLM students and JD/LLM students in their career planning. A native of Ukraine, Kobelev is fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish and proficient in French. “As a former international law student, I know first-hand how bewildering the American legal job market can be,” he says. “I am eager to help serve as a cultural interpreter of sorts, helping students close culture gaps, integrate into the Duke family, and achieve their professional goals.”

Kobelev’s office is Room 4066; he can be reached at kobelev@law.duke.edu or (919) 613-7144.

A new office in D.C.
Later this month, Associate Dean Judith Horowitz will move to Washington, D.C., where her husband, Donald Horowitz, the James B. Duke Professor of Law and Political Science, will serve as a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars during the 2010-11 academic year.

Dean Horowitz will retain many of her responsibilities in the Law School’s administration as she works from her Washington home.

“Of course, I will miss seeing our students and my Duke Law colleagues every day,” says Horowitz, who has worked at the Law School for nearly 30 years and has helped advance Duke Law’s global reputation through her stewardship of the LLM program and her personal relationships with alumni around the globe. “But I consider this to simply be a change in office location. My involvement at the Law School and in our international programs will remain steadfast. I also am looking forward to working on a variety of projects for the Law School in the future, and to helping to advance our relationships with alumni working in and traveling through Washington.”

Jennifer Maher will assume greater leadership of day-to-day operation of the International Studies Office, which includes the international LLM and SJD programs. Maher also teaches Legal Analysis, Research and Writing to international students, and she works closely with the Career Center in advising international LLM students on career planning and assisting JD students in developing international careers.

While studying at Duke, Maher was a member of the editorial board of the Duke Law Journal and the Duke Law School Moot Court Board and was elected to the Order of the Coif. She practiced with the Raleigh law firm of Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell, and Jernigan before joining the Duke Law faculty in 1987. She has served as the chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Graduate Programs for Foreign Lawyers and of the North Carolina Bar Association’s International Law and Practice Section.

Maher also is the administrator of the Duke/Geneva Institute of Transnational Law; Judy and Don Horowitz will continue to oversee the Asia-America Institute in Transnational Law.

Click here to meet the entire staff of the International Studies Office.