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Members of the Asian Judicial Institute with Joe Shannon, center, and AJI director and professor Joe Spurlock, far right. Shannon is the chair-elect of the Directors of the State Bar of Texas and spoke to the group about how to run a bar association.

In its ongoing efforts to provide legal re-training for the legal and judicial communities of Mongolia, the Asian Judicial Institute of Texas Wesleyan University School of Law welcomed eight Mongolian attorneys and public officials to its annual training session on June 23.

The eighth annual training is part of the AJI’s ongoing partnership with the country of Mongolia as it adapts to a democratic system of government. It will cover the principles of United States and Texas law on elements of the practice of law in a democracy with emphasis on lawyer and judicial ethics; formation and operation of an integrated bar association; establishment and operation of continuing legal education for members of the bar; and policing the ethics of judges and lawyers in a democratic legal system.

The Texas Bar Foundation recently awarded Texas Wesleyan University School of Law a $25,000 grant to assist in funding the AJI.

In an interview with the Fort Worth Business Press, Anne Yeakel, executive director of the Texas Bar Foundation, said the AJI training program is important because it educates all the lawyers involved, not just the ones who receive training.

“The value of the rule of law in creating and supporting democratic institutions, and in doing this grant, is an education for Texas lawyers as well as Mongolian lawyers,” Yeakel said. “[The training] crystallizes our local attorneys’ thinking, it just shines a light on the issue, it makes them review the importance of the rule of law again that we take for granted.”

The two-week program includes presentations by Texas Wesleyan law professors, members of the state bar and judiciary, and visits to district and state courts. Notable presenters include the Honorable Wallace Jefferson, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, and Joe Shannon, Jr., chair-elect of the Board of Directors for the State Bar of Texas.