Homer Moyer was interviewed regarding his role as co-founder of the American Bar Association's (ABA's) Rule of Law Institute (ROLI), formerly known as the Central European and Eurasian Law Institute (CEELI). Moyer is currently on the ROLI Board and has been involved with the project "in one capacity or another" since it was founded as CEELI in 1990, he said. The program grew out of a 1989 lunch discussion between Moyer and CEELI co-founder Sandy D'Alemberte. "Out of that lunch came the idea to propose a technical legal assistance project for countries that were beginning to emerge from the Soviet bloc," Moyer said. "It took us about a year to get approval for that project from the ABA and from the State Department. It began quietly, modestly, below the radar, but ultimately grew to become the largest pro bono project that the ABA had ever done." 

The program provided legal experts from the United States, Canada, and Western Europe, who worked with countries that were just emerging from Communist rule. "People were starting from the ground," Moyer said. "They were talking about what their government should be, how their constitution should be written or re-written; how they should build democracies, market-oriented economies. It was very exciting in these countries for the people involved and it was very exciting for volunteers." Over 10 years, the project saw more than 5,000 American lawyers and judges volunteer for the program, some of whom lived for a year in a country without pay to act as liaisons for the project. "They were in all shapes and sizes – young lawyers, mid-careers, sabbaticals, retired lawyers – and they were extraordinary," Moyer said. "They were the real heroes of this project."