2 May 2008

Former Marine Casey Kuhlman is no stranger to quick deployments. So it won’t seem odd for him to receive his J.D. from Vanderbilt Law School on Friday, May 9, then pack his bags to leave the following Monday for the eastern edge of Africa.

Kuhlman will travel to Somaliland, a province of Somalia, where he will spend two years working with the provincial election commission to help them reach the goal of achieving best international practices in their electoral system.

He will be working with a small NGO (non-governmental organization), the Public International Law and Policy Group, which received a State Department grant for the project.  During the course of the two-year project, PILPG will provide technical and legal assistance to the Somaliland government in preparation for the 2008 and 2009 local and presidential elections.  Kuhlman will be working with Somaliland government officials, policymakers and key members of civil society, providing legal assistance on issues of constitutional and legislative reform. 

“We will do capacity building for their electoral system,” Kuhlman said. “We’ll be training the trainers – teaching them how to do things so they can do it themselves.”

Somaliland, a surprisingly green and mountainous part of Africa with a climate similar to California, is in the northeastern part of Somalia and has a history as a British colony. “Although Somaliland is in a traditional Muslim country, they have a constitution, a bi-cameral legislature and three branches of government,” Kuhlman said. “It’s very interesting to see how they’ve built all of that with no money and next to no external support apparatus.”

Kuhlman said it was during his time as a student at Vanderbilt Law School that he realized he was drawn to a career as a peace builder.  Through classes with Mike Newton, professor of the practice of law and an adviser to the Justice Department in Iraq, Kuhlman became involved in post-conflict international law.

Kuhlman spent one summer and a full semester during law school working with the War Crimes Tribunal in Sierra Leone in the office of the prosecutor who put former Liberian president Charles Taylor on trial for war crimes.

An Orlando native, Kuhlman took a non-traditional path to law school. He went to the University of Illinois to study civil engineering on a ROTC scholarship, entering the Marines after graduation as an infantry officer. His time in the military included tours in Japan, Korea, Kuwait and Iraq, where he was part of the initial force in the recent conflict.

After his military commitment ended, Kuhlman who now sports a long, non-military hair style and beard, became a “ski bum,” working as a lift operator at Mammoth in California and later in Aspen. He decided to get serious about a career, took his LSATs and applied to law school. Vanderbilt seemed a good fit for his interests and his desire to move back to the South, near his family in Chattanooga.

His current plan to spend the next two years in Somaliland seems a natural step on his life’s journey.

“I’ve been a Marine. I’ve been an engineer.  I’ve been a hippie. Now I’ll be a lawyer. The one area that touches all of these is peace building,” Kuhlman said. “It’s the perfect scenario for me.”

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Media Contact: Jennifer Johnston (615) 322-2706
Jennifer.johnston@vanderbilt.edu