Grover Joseph Rees III, Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East Timor), spoke to LSU Law Center graduate students on Wednesday, August 2 at a luncheon at the LSU Faculty Club. Rees is a 1978 graduate of the LSU Law Center. Rees met with Law Center officials and spoke with international students who will study in the graduate LL.M./Master of Laws program at the Center over the next year.
President Bush nominated Grover Joseph Rees as Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Timor-Lest on September 4, 2002. The U.S. Senate confirmed his nomination on November 12, 2002, and Ambassador Rees presented his credentials to President Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao on December 9, 2002. Ambassador Rees formerly served as a judge, as a law professor, and as a senior official of the executive and legislative branches of the United States Government. A native of Louisiana, he received his undergraduate degree from Yale University.
From January 2001 until December 2002 he served as Counsel to the Committee on International Relations of the U.S. House of Representatives, where his responsibilities included Southeast Asian affairs, refugees, and international human rights. He had served the Committee previously (1995-2001) as Staff Director and Chief Counsel of the Subcommittee on International Operations and Human Rights. Ambassador Rees also served as General Counsel of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (1991-93); as Chief Justice (and later Associate Justice) of the High Court of American Samoa (1986-91); as Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Texas (1979-86); as law clerk to then-Associate Justice Albert Tate Jr. of the Supreme Court of Louisiana (1978-79); and as press assistant to then-United States Representative David C. Treen (R.-La.) (1973).
Ambassador Rees is proficient in Tetum and Portuguese, the two official languages of East Timor, and also speaks Spanish, French, and Samoan.
The LSU Law Center’s LL.M./Master of Laws program annually enrolls students from various foreign countries for study at the Law Center. The LSU Law Center program was ranked 15th in the 2006 Rankings of American LL.M./Master of Laws, according to the American Universities Admission Program (AAUP).
