Mike also brought his commitment to the rule of law to an international forum.  He participated in international and multicultural programs under the auspices of Project Harmony, a program was funded by the United States Agency for International Development and Southern Maine Community College’s Center for Global Opportunities.  Mike’s participation included hosting individuals from Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, and Moldova, as well as the facilitation of and participation in cultural education programs.  These efforts included assistance in the development of internships for international students from Turkmenistan and Ukraine, and a presentation on legal issues to students from Russia, Spain, Somalia, and the Netherlands.

Next, Mike began operating overseas in post-conflict environments and in developing countries to promote international rule of law principles.  In March 2011, he was a pro bono legal advisor to a team of court administrators engaged by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the European Union to design a project that would implement judicial administration reforms in Serbia as part of that country’s application for admission to the European Union.  It was delicate subject matter, and his work in Serbia involved liaison with judges and staff members of the Serbian High Court Council, the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court of Cassation, the Courts of Appeal, the Commercial Court, the High Court, the Misdemeanor Court, and the Municipal Court, as well as the Serbian Ministry of Justice and other interested parties.

In 2012 and 2013, Mike worked with the USAID Effective Rule of Law Program in Kosovo, where he served as a legal advisor to the Kosovo Constitutional Court, the Kosovo Judicial Council, the Kosovo Judicial Institute, the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council, the Kosovo Ministry of Justice (in connection with the Ministry’s Department of International Legal Cooperation and the State Advocacy Office), and the USAID Model Courts Program (regarding the reorganization of Kosovo’s judicial system, which included the establishment of the Kosovo Court of Appeals).  In general terms, Mike’s role in Kosovo was to facilitate reforms of the Kosovo judicial and prosecutorial institutions.  Among other initiatives, he developed and delivered programs designed to strengthen substantive judicial services, ranging from legal reasoning and writing of judicial decisions to case and hearing management, to case backlog and delay reduction, and providing a particular focus to applications of the best ethical practices.  He also had substantial responsibility in planning for the reinstitution of judicial functions in North Kosovo after the Prime Ministers of Kosovo and Serbia reached a normalization agreement that dissolved de facto partitioning of the North from the rest of Kosovo that followed Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008.

In 2014, 2015, and 2016, Mike served as a Senior Short-Term Expert for the European Union-Funded Project for Support to the Kosovo Judicial Council and the Kosovo Prosecutorial Council.  In 2015, the USAID Justice Project in Bosnia & Herzegovina retained him as an International Expert on Prosecutor-Guided Investigations, and he developed and delivered a special program to facilitate the establishment of police/prosecutor teams that would focus on the investigation and prosecution of corruption and serious financial crime cases.  Since then, he also completed assignments in Albania (in 2017), Ukraine (in 2017 and 2018), Thailand (with officials from Pakistan, in 2017 and 2018), Kosovo (in 2017 and 2018), and Ethiopia (in 2019, 2021, and 2022), where he advised judicial and prosecutorial institutions, as well as corresponding oversight bodies, and performed related responsibilities. 

In 2019, Mike was a coauthor with Attorney Bardhyl Hasanpapaj and Kosovo Court of Appeals Judges Albert Zogaj, Valon Totaj and Zenel Leku, of the Kosovo Civil Litigation Manual, which was published by the USAID/Kosovo in the Albanian and Serbian languages.  Combining technical guidance with practical advice and examples, the Manual provides practical information to assist Kosovo judges in the timely movement of civil cases from submission to a fair resolution.  In addition to printed copies distributed to Kosovo civil judges, the Manual was published in digital format on websites maintained by the Kosovo Judicial Council and the Kosovo Supreme Court so that it is easily accessible to court staff, court legal associates, lawyers, unrepresented parties, law professors and students, and members of the public.

In addition to providing advice and support regarding substantive judicial and prosecutorial functions, a significant part of Mike’s international rule of law work involves the development and maintenance of institutional integrity.  In that capacity, he conducts studies and needs assessment, develops and delivers instructional programs, and makes regulatory and legislative proposals, promotes best practices for strategic planning (including needs assessments, action planning, and the monitoring and evaluation of implementation steps), employee performance evaluation procedures, disciplinary procedures, codes of professional ethics, and other professionalization efforts designed to promote human rights and to discourage corrupt practices.