Evaristo Capalla, 2018-2019

Thomas Galgani, 2017-2018

The Legal Policy Research Center is a Kazakh think-tank composed of lawyers from all around the country with the goal of promoting liberal ideals, the rule of law, and a basis for greater democratic reforms in Kazakhstan. LPRC is financially supported by various national and international organizations and institutions, including the UN and US State Department. Interns aid the main team in finding sources, writing literature reviews, and producing research for ongoing projects. During my internship I helped my supervisors collect guideline violation case studies from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. I also contributed original research for the organization’s project on reforming jury trials in Kazakhstan to follow the U.S. model. My reports were used by LPRC during Expert Hearings on legal reform in Parliament.

~ Evaristo Capalla, 2018-2019

Click here for Evaristo’s impressions of the capstone experience.

Another perspective

"The Legal Research Center is an analytical center that focuses on human rights, political freedoms, democracy, consistent access to information for citizens, and government transparency. They also focus on helping to ensure an open line of communication between political/business elites and the general public. I had different assignments almost every week, and my job primarily consisted of doing research on various companies in both Kazakhstan and across Europe through English and Russian sources so that the Center could learn from NGOs' successes and failures in combating corruption and human rights violations. I would send reports and summaries to my supervisor in a condensed format while also highlighting the areas that were of particular interest to them. Subsequently, much time was spent translating or sight translating various reports or documents from English into Russian for them. I also occasionally helped with editing some of their business correspondence in English with companies in the UK and in Europe for events and meetings that were to take place in Almaty. This experience allowed me to put my Russian language skills into practice while gaining a better cultural understanding of how business and law topics are discussed in one of the former Soviet Republics. 

~ Thomas Galgani, 2017-2018