Meet the Founders

Bruce A. Lasky

Bruce A. Lasky is a Founder and Director of the International Organization Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia (BABSEA) and is the Director for BABSEA's Community Legal Education (CLE) Initiatives, which focuses on the development of university based clinical legal education programs as well as grassroots community based legal advisor/paralegal program support. Both programs provide practical legal education and empowerment tools to disadvantaged and marginalized communities.

From 2003-2006 Bruce assisted in the planning, development and implementation of the Pannasastra University of Cambodia Clinical Legal Education Program in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In addition to this program Bruce began the initiation of what has now evolved into the BABSEA Cambodia Community Empowerment Legal Awareness program by authoring, co-authoring and facilitating the development of grassroots legal education training materials, conducting numerous CLE workshops, in addition to training trainers and managers for the program.

At the beginning of 2007 Bruce relocated to Chiang Mai, Thailand where he is working as an Adjunct Professor of Law with Chiang Mai University to assist in the further development of their Clinical Legal Education program. Bruce was also appointed as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Universiti Teknologi MARA in Malaysia, and a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the University of Malaya to aid in the initiation of their Juvenile Justice Clinical Legal Education program. He further works as a consultant with similar initiatives in Vietnam and Laos where he assists as a visiting professor/trainer.

While working in a variety of CLE fields, Bruce has been targeting and focusing a significant amount of effort on programs assisting marginalized, incarcerated adults and juveniles as well as providing adequate access to health care for prisoners and detainees. In addition to his legal thematic work, Bruce assists in directing various community development, child education, and other programs in countries outside of Cambodia.

He is a graduate, of the Central European University Human Rights LLM program (Honors/Most Outstanding Student Award) and the University of Florida J.D. and BA Programs (Honors). He is a licensed member of the Florida Bar Association and a member of the Northern, Middle and Southern District of Florida Federal Bar Association. He was a criminal legal aid practitioner for the 8th Judicial Circuit Public Defenders Office, Gainesville/Starke/McClenney, Florida, from 1991-1999 where he was engaged in felony, misdemeanor, appeals and juvenile work, as well as supervising students from the University of Florida College of Law Clinical Legal Education Program.

Bruce also is one of the Founding and active Directors of the International Organization, Sustainable Cambodia. Sustainable Cambodia is a grassroots level organization focusing on working with the people and villages in Cambodia to become self-sustaining communities through participatory empowerment initiatives.

David Pred

David Pred is a Founder and Director of Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia, and has served as the Cambodia Country Director since 2005. During this time, David developed BABSEA's Cambodia Country Program, which was created to establish child protection and education facilities, community development centers, and several organizational and capacity building programs in Phnom Penh and the rural provinces of Takeo, Kompong Speu and Kep.

David has played a significant role in the movement to end forced evictions in Cambodia. He co-founded and serves on the Core Committee of the Cambodian Housing Rights Task Force, a coalition of more than twenty local and international organizations dedicated to protecting housing rights, ending forced evictions, supporting community action, and strengthening civil society organizations to promote the right to adequate housing in Cambodia.
David has also authored training materials and delivered Training of Trainers workshops for popular education curriculum on various topics including Cambodian land law; international human rights law on housing rights and forced evictions; negotiation skills for communities under threat of eviction; international criminal law, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal and transitional justice in Cambodia.

Prior to co-founding Bridges Across Borders Southeast Asia, David held the positions of Development Manager at the Cambodian Defenders Project (2002-2003) and Assistant Coordinator of the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice (2001-2002). David also co-founded the international organization Sustainable Cambodia and served on its Board of Directors from 2005-2007.

He has a Masters Degree with distinction in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Essex, UK (2003-2005), where he was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar and recipient of an Honourable Mention for the Daniel Fitzmaurice Human Rights Award. He also has a Bachelors Degree with honours in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Florida, US (1997-2001). David was born and raised in North Miami Beach, Florida and attended North Miami Beach Senior High School, class of 1997.