As The Leavitt Institute has progressed, it has been very fortunate to have combined with some of the brightest international relations specialists and legal minds throughout the United States. The TLI Board of Directors currently consists of six of those minds. Below is a a brief biography of each member:

 

Chelom Leavitt

President and Executive Director

Chelom graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Economics in 1988. She then attended J. Reuben Clark law school and earned a J.D. in 1992. In private practice for 13 years, Chelom focused on mediation and alternative dispute resolution.

In 2004 Chelom and her husband, David, took their family to Ukraine to help the ABA with the CEELI program. The relationships and experiences in Ukraine prompted the creation of TLI in 2005. Chelom began the duties of Executive Director of TLI in 2006.

As TLI's executive director, Chelom oversees all activities of the institute. The curriculum director, university director, accounting director, and development director all are all accountable to the executive director. Mrs. Leavitt is a licensed lawyer since 1992, and has nine years experience leading non-profit and NGO organizations. Mrs. Leavitt has spent one year in Ukraine, lectured in seminars jointly sponsored by the Supreme Court of Ukraine and TLI, and taught in Ukrainian universities.

Chelom and David have seven children and live in Provo, Utah.

 

Edward G. Marks

Member of the Board

Edward Marks focuses his practice in estate planning, trust administration, probate work,real estate, and personal planning. His work includes advising numerous small and mid-sized businesses. He also works closely with non-profit organizations around the area with a focus on organizational issues and building strong relationships both between their professional staffs and volunteer leaders, and in their legal relationships with the general community. Although Mr. Marks focuses much of his time on the disputeavoidance aspects of an attorney's role, he also has a long history of experience in dispute resolution.

Mr. Marks has been active in the community, serving now on the boards of Cincinnati Arts Association (Secretary), Greater Cincinnati Arts and Education Center (Secretary), Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, Jewish Cemeteries of Greater Cincinnati (President), and other non-profit organizations. He has served on the governing boards of the Ohio State Bar Association and the Cincinnati Bar Association, and numerous law-related committees. He formerly was president of Cincinnati-Kharkiv Sister City Project (and its successor, Cincinnati-Ukraine Partnership), and has served on the boards of his synagogue (K.K. Bene Israel) and of the Union for Reform Judaism, Midwest Council.

Mr. Marks has lectured widely in continuing legal education courses, and in 2008, taught about the jury system in Kiev, Ukraine, on behalf of the Leavitt Institute for International Understanding. He is continuing his activities with the Leavitt Institute, working to expand its programs to law schools throughout Ukraine.

A former radio personality and broadcast journalist, he has taught Broadcast Law to electronic media majors at the University of Cincinnati, and for almost 10 years, hosted a weekly television show on the local ABC affiliate, Ask Your Lawyer. He has contributed heavily to the Ohio Bar's 250+-page general law text, The Law and You.

 

David Nuffer

Member of the Board

Judge David Nuffer was appointed as a United States Magistrate Judge in 1995. For seven and one-half years, he was a part time judge, part time lawyer and was appointed as a full time judge January 17, 2003. He practiced law 25 years in St. George Utah after graduating from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at Brigham Young University. While in private practice, he was a managing partner with a law firm that grew from 2 lawyers to 25. He now teaches law practice management at Brigham Young University and is a frequent lecturer on technology and legal issues.

Mr. Nuffer maintains archives for a listserv for U.S. Magistrate Judges, a web page of court-related technology resources and a blog regarding CM/ECF, the federal court electronic filing system. He also serves on the Utah State Civil Procedure Rules Advisory Committee and the United States Magistrate Judges Advisory Committee.

During his years as a lawyer, he was a member and Chair of the Utah Judicial Conduct Commission and a commissioner and president of the Utah State Bar. He regularly participates in continuing legal education presentations and has presented to judges, lawyers, and law students in Brazil in 2002 and, with the Leavitt Institute, to law professors and law students in Ukraine in 2007.

 

John Lunt

Member of the Board

John Lunt is the founder and president of Lunt Capital Management, Inc., a money management firm based in Salt Lake City. He started managing investments in foreign currencies in 1996, and has been actively managing investments across asset classes ever since. He graduated with honors from Brigham Young University with a degree in Economics, and later received an MBA in Finance and International Business from New York University. Since 2001, he has served on the board of Utah Retirement Systems, a multi-billion dollar pension fund. From 2004 to 2007, he was elected by his peers as board president.

Mr. Lunt has received the designation of PLANSPONSOR Retirement Professional (PRP), and was recognized by Utah Business Magazine in 2007 as one of Utah's Top 40 under 40. He has also completed the Program for Advanced Trustee Studies at Harvard Law School. Mr. Lunt completed a number of courses at the New York Institute of Finance on trading and portfolio management and formerly worked on the Washington, D.C. staff of U.S. Senator Robert Bennett.

Mr. Lunt first visited the former Soviet Union (including Ukraine) in 1990 as an exchange student. He then was called as a LDS missionary to Ukraine from 1991-1993. While studying at Brigham Young University, he minored in Russian and wrote my honors thesis on Ukraine's transition to a market economy. He continues to follow the markets and economies of Eastern Europe very closely at Lunt Capital.

 

Ray Harding, Sr.

Member of the Board

Ray Harding, Sr. graduated from the S. J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah in 1960. From 1960-1970, he was a private practicing attorney. He then left private practice to serve as the Alaskan Deputy Attorney General from 1970-1971 and the General Counsel for Skaggs Company from 1971-1973. He returned to private practice in 1973, until he was appointed as a State of Utah District Court Judge in 1985. Mr. Harding presided on the bench for eighteen years, the last three serving as a Senior District Court Judge. He also taught as an adjunct professor at Utah Valley State College from 1986-1995. He left the bench in 2003 and went to China as a foreign expert (professor) at Qinqdao University from 2003-2004. Following his China experience, he worked with the CEELI Program in Ukraine, starting as a semiar presenter in April and May of 2005 and ending as the director of the ABA CEELI program from September 2005 to June 2006.

Mr. Harding served on the Utah State Bar as a Bar Examiner on Ethics Issues, as a member of a Bar Disciplinary Hearing Panel, and as a member of the Bar Examination Review Committee. He gained Utah Bar approval for using the MPRE in the state. He served three terms in the Utah State House of Representatives 1963-1968. While serving two terms as the Presiding Judge of the Fourth District Court in Utah, he converted the courts to computers and set up time management procedures and developed a research clerk program for the courts. He has arranged and supervised the construction of two County Court Houses and the complete remodeling of one County Court House. He served two years as Chairman of the Board of District Court Judges of the State of Utah, and served as a committee member for an additional four years.

Mr. Harding has served on many committees, including the State Judicial Conduct Rules Revision Committee, the State Judicial Education Committee, the State Gender Bias in the Courts Study Committee, the Judicial Performance Evaluation Committee, and the Executive Committee of the National Conference of State Trial Court Judges, a conference group of the American Bar Association. He served three years as a member of the Judicial Council of the State of Utah. He received the state award for the establishment of a Drug Court in Utah 1996. He was the first Utah Judge to earn Diploma of Judicial Skills from the American Academy of Judicial Education 1998. He received the Utah State Bar "Judge Of The Year" Award 2001. In October 2007, he was awarded the J. Reuben Clark Law Society "Lifetime Service in Law Award".

 

David O. Leavitt

Member of the Board

David Leavitt was admitted to the Utah Bar in 1991, and moved with his wife, Chelom Leavitt, and children to Fillmore, Utah where he served as the city attorney and maintained a private law practice. He worked there until 1995, when he was appointed Juab County Attorney. After serving eight years as county attorney, in 2003, he again resumed his private practice and entered the field of business.

When Mr. Leavitt returned to private practice, he chose to focusing on government relations and federal criminal defense. In 2004, the American Bar Association asked Leavitt to spend a year in Kiev in the Ukraine assisting the Ukrainian government in converting its criminal justice system from a Soviet-style system to one that more closely approximates the American criminal justice system. He accepted the invitation and moved with Chelom and six children to Ukraine. Following his one year stint in the Ukraine, Leavitt started The Leavitt Institute For International Development to continue the work he started in 2004.