When U.S. Army Capt. Kevin J. Curseaden ’97 left Iraq and returned to his Connecticut law practice, he brought with him “a tolerance and understanding for suffering that I may not have had before.”

It is impossible to spend time with the Kurdish Iraqi people and not be moved by their plight and the horrors they have experienced, he said.

Curseaden volunteered his time teaching a course on the American legal system at Sulaymaniyah University in northern Iraq. He had 15 graduate students in his class. After entering Iraq with the 10th Special Forces, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division as a civil affairs officer.

Curseaden said he thought teaching about the U.S. Constitution and the American legal system would be time well spent.

Cindy Slane, director of field placement programs and an assistant clinical professor of law, is proud of her former student. “I’m excited that Capt. Curseaden did something so altruistic,” she said. “He was a credit to the law school then, and he is now. That he shared what he knows with his peers and with Iraqi students is very exciting.”

Curseaden works at Stevens, Carroll & Carveth in Milford, Conn. The majority of his time is spent on real estate and zoning matters.