David Roach, founding member of the Tonawanda-based law firm Blair & Roach LLP, was approved for candidacy on the Fulbright Specialist roster.

The Fulbright Specialist Program promotes linkages between U.S. academics and professionals and their counterparts at universities abroad. Roach's appointment was approved by the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Department of State and the Council for International Exchange of Scholars.

Roach, a Canisius College and Harvard Law School graduate, is eligible to be matched with incoming program requests from overseas academic institutions for Fulbright Specialists.

In 2009, he was a faculty member and presented a paper on recent developments in American environmental law at a symposium conducted by the University of Catania Faculty of Jurisprudence in Catania, Sicily. In 2008, he taught a course in American business law at the Szczecin University School of Law and Administration in Szczecin, Poland.

Each year, the Fulbright Scholar Program sends some 800 U.S. faculty and professionals to 140 countries to lecture, research or participate in seminars.