ILN Specialty Groups - International Lawyers Network

Medical Device and Drug Manufacturing Litigation
Chaired by Jeff Shapiro of Arnstein & Lehr, LLP, the Medical Device & Drug Manufacturing Litigation Group provides the platform for enhanced communication, enabling all of its members to easily service the needs of their clients requiring advice on cross-border transactions. The group's members have focused on building their relationships internally through face to face meetings, periodic conference calls and shared emails. They have also been outwardly focused, hosting a cocktail reception in May of 2005 for clients and developing a virtual roundtable on the topic: "How to Lose a Lawsuit by Not Keeping Track of Your E-Mails and Documents: Spoliation, Electronic Discovery and the Avoidance of Sanctions," to showcase their collective expertise.

Tax Law
Chaired by Gary Kaplan of Howard, Rice, Nemerovski, Canady, Falk and Rabkin in San Francisco, California, the International Tax Group provides the platform for enhanced communication, enabling all of its members to easily service the needs of their clients requiring advice on cross-border transactions. The group used the 2005 Regional Meeting of the Americas in Atlanta, Georgia to have a roundtable discussion on the issue of “Non US Investment in US Real Property: Favorite FIRPTA Structures” and continues to meet at ILN Annual & Regional meetings to discuss issues of common interest.

Corporate & Securities
Co-Chaired by Charles Cowper of Gadens Lawyers in Sydney, Australia and Ted Polin of Epstein, Becker & Green, P.C. in New York, the Corporate and Securities Group provides a platform for discussion among ILN members of Corporate and Securities Law matters in an international context, including mergers and acquisitions, securities offerings, commercial contracts and corporate governance.

Energy
Chaired by Brit Brown of Beirne, Maynard & Parsons LLP in Houston, Texas, the Energy Group provides the platform for enhanced communication, enabling all of its members to easily service the needs of their clients requiring advice on cross-border transactions.

Estates & Trusts
Chaired by Mark Weintraub of Clark Wilson in Vancouver, Canada, the Estates and Trusts Group provides a platform for enhanced communication among member attorneys in this field, enabling the members to easily service the needs of their clients requiring advice on cross-border transactions.

Finance and Restructuring
Co-chaired by Marc Udink of Udink & De Jong in The Hague, the Netherlands and David Willenzik of McGlinchey Stafford in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Finance and Restructuring Group provides the platform for enhanced communication, enabling all of its members to easily service the needs of their clients requiring advice on cross-border transactions.

Intellectual Property
Headed by Marga Wolpert of Wolpert Rechtsanwälte, Bad Homburg, Germany and Norman Zivin of Cooper & Dunham LLP, New York, New York, the Intellectual Property Group provides the platform for enhanced communication, enabling all of its members to easily service the needs of their clients requiring advice on cross-border transactions. The group has hosted events in conjunction with the International Trademark Association's (INTA) Annual Meeting since 2004. In San Diego, they showcased their collective expertise at a buffet lunch, which brought together ILN members, clients, and potential clients. It followed one of the morning's concurrent sessions - "No Longer a Missing Link - The CTM and the Madrid Protocol." With the United States joining the Madrid Protocol on November 2, 2003, the informal discussions at lunch were an interesting forum to talk about the reasons for the use or non-use of the Madrid Protocol, based on the group Members' experiences from two perspectives, including the reasons for the filing of International Applications by American Companies using the Madrid Protocol and the reasons to request the extension of trademark protection in the United States by foreign companies using the Madrid Protocol.

The group met most recently at INTA's 2010 Annual Meeting in Boston for lunch and meets regularly during ILN Regional and Annual Meetings for discussions on topics of common interest. They recently published their inaugural roundtable on the topic "How Can Companies Save Money While Adequately Protecting Their Trademarks Internationally?" which is available on the ILN website.

International Dispute Resolution
Chaired by Marty Beirne of Beirne Maynard & Parsons LLP in Houston, Texas, the International Dispute Resolution Group provides the platform for enhanced communication, enabling all of its members to easily service the needs of their clients requiring advice on cross-border transactions. The goals for the group include the formalization of internal communications through the implementation of a group email address, the creation of a Knowledge Base, consisting of general statutory, treaty and other forms of legal information populated through the website, and the completion of an informational questionnaire by the members of the group.

The group recently met at the 2010 Annual Meeting in Singapore for a session with special guests from the Singapore International Arbitration Centre.

International Trade
Chaired by David Russell of Harrison & Moberly, Indianapolis, USA, the International Trade Group provides the platform for enhanced communication, enabling all of its members to easily service the needs of their clients requiring advice on cross-border transactions. The International Trade Group is focused on the sale and purchase of goods under the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods ("CISG"); agency and distribution (contracts) in relation to sale of goods; documentary credit; export finance; credit insurance and arbitration under commercial contracts.

Labor & Employment
Co-chaired by Marie Macdonald of Miller Samuel LLP, Glasgow and William Milani of Epstein Becker & Green in New York, New York. The group used the 2005 European Regional Meeting to discuss the issues of secondment and economic dismissal/redundancy plans. In addition, they have continued to meet during ILN Annual and Regional meetings for discussions on topics of common interest, and further their collaboration through the formation of a group on LinkedIn.

Marketing
The ILN Marketing Group provides the platform for enhanced communication, enabling all of its members to service the needs of their law firms. Chaired by Lindsay Griffiths of the ILN, the group's members are focused on the following goals: Serving as a means of sharing knowledge and best practices among member firms; assisting the ILN Administration in its marketing efforts through suggestions/feedback and co-marketing opportunities; and serving as a resource to firms in the Network without marketing professionals or departments.

Mining
Chaired by Raziel Zisman of Fogler, Rubinoff LLP in Toronto, Canada the Mining Group provides a platform for discussion among ILN members of Mining Law matters in an international context.

Mining enterprises are often international in nature and thus are an ideal specialty area for a group such as the ILN. Increasingly, entrepreneurs from many jurisdictions, not just from the USA, Canada or Australia but also from countries such as Brazil, Chile, South Africa, China and Viet Nam, are taking advantage of public capital markets such as the Toronto Stock Exchange to raise risk capital to build their companies. This offers many cross border opportunities for law firms in mining, finance, securities, corporate and tax and in many other areas of the law as well such as environmental, regulatory and employment law.

Real Estate
Chaired by Pavla Prikrylova of PETERKA & PARTNERS v.o.s. in Prague, the Czech Republic, the Real Estate Group has met during recent ILN Regional and Annual Meetings for discussions on topics of common interest. The group provides a platform to enhance communication among member attorneys in this field, enabling members to easily service the needs of their clients requiring advice on cross-border transactions.

Sports Law
Chaired by Johan Vanden Eynde of Vanden Eynde Legal in Brussels Belgium, this Group focuses on the following areas: challenges of organizing major international sporting events, setting up associated financial support for these events, public procurements and private partnership for building of the infrastructures. tax planning, TV and other image rights, contracts, organizers liabilities and implementation of international legislation, competition law and international property (including merchandise). The Group will also focus on the more person matters of international support for the sports(wo)men in all matters, contract, tax planning, image rights, sponsoring and discipline.