With more clients located abroad, attorneys are increasingly being paid in foreign currency.
Billing and receiving payment in foreign currency raises a host of questions, beginning when the client pays a retainer. Some firms require that the client pay a retainer in the firm’s national currency; other firms accept payment in the client’s native currency, and then convert it themselves (bearing any currency fluctuation risk and often any currency transaction fees).
The ABA’s Law Practice magazine’s June issue discusses this topic in Dollars to Dinars: Billing and Collecting in a Global Market by David Bilinsky and Laura Calloway. The article also explores the pros and cons of bearing currency risk, implications for financial statements, whether to bill in a foreign currency, and the like.
Regardless of whether a law firm will receive British pounds, Mexican pesos or Botswanan pulas, advance planning and research prepares lawyers to be paid by international clients.
For tips on how to Become a Versatile, Flexible, Nimble–and Exceptional–International Lawyer, read my latest article for the international column of The Complete Lawyer online magazine. Click on the links to read the article on the TCL website, or peruse the text below:
Become A Versatile, Flexible, Nimble—And Exceptional—International Lawyer
Adjust your international practice to meet market demands.
By JANET H. MOORE
Become A Versatile, Flexible, Nimble—
And Exceptional—International Lawyer
International lawyers need to spot issues that arise both across jurisdictions and outside their expertise
By Janet H. Moore
Click these links for a specific section or read the entire article below:
- Be Versatile, Flexible and Nimble To Succeed In International Law
- Gain Exposure to Different Legal Systems and Jurisdictions
- Spot Critical Issues
- Adjust Your International Practice To Meet Market Demands
Exceptional international practitioners realize that remaining versatile, flexible and nimble benefits their practice. This versatility helps them resolve client inquiries—even though clear-cut answers across legal systems are often impossible to find. Good international lawyers know how to handle this uncertainty by drawing on their wealth of experience when advising their clients. They are able to notice and analyze important issues in complex international matters, and track down the requisite answers from foreign counsel, original legal sources and other resources.
Law firms are beginning to acknowledge the benefit of such versatility. According to David Morley, Worldwide Managing Partner of the London-based Magic Circle firm Allen & Overy, “…we need to develop versatile lawyers capable of working in more than one discipline. So when a partner has career discussions with an associate who wants to experience other practice areas, we must encourage that where we can.” 1
Gain Exposure To Different Legal Systems and Jurisdictions
How can international practitioners enhance their versatility? Gaining exposure to legal issues in different geographic areas, under different legal systems (such as Sharia and civil law, as well as common law), and in a variety of legal disciplines, will broaden a lawyer’s experience.
As Gerard Meijer, a partner with the Benelux firm NautaDutilh who specializes in international commercial litigation and arbitration notes, “As a litigator, I have become versatile as I have acted in a wide variety of disputes.”
In fact, Gerard’s international practice has exposed him to clients and issues across the world. “We represent a Dutch insurance company in an investment arbitration against the Republic of Poland regarding the Republic of Poland’s refusal to comply with its commitments to transfer shares in a Polish insurance company to our client. We also act for a UK defense company regarding the setting aside of an arbitral award between our client and the Iranian Ministry of Defense. At the moment, I also sit as arbitrator (inter alia in a matter regarding the distribution of professional skates in Korea).”
Like Gerard, many international practitioners handle matters involving a wide variety of jurisdictions. Looking for opportunities to become familiar with the laws of various jurisdictions, and to get some real world experience in those venues, will increase an international lawyer’s effectiveness and prepare him or her for whatever arises.
Salli Swartz, a partner in the Paris-based firm Phillips Geraud Naud & Swartz, often works on complex border transactions involving multiple jurisdictions. As an American trained attorney who now lives and practices in France, Salli specializes in assisting foreign companies investing or otherwise doing business in France. During one transaction she found herself “drafting and negotiating in the English language when I was the only native English speaker present: the others were from 6 different countries with 6 different languages and at least 3 different legal systems and all of them thought that their English was better than mine!! For one simple sentence there were 6 different interpretations of the meaning.” Having an understanding of the laws of these different jurisdictions helped Salli handle this situation with aplomb.
Spot Critical Issues
Becoming versatile as an international lawyer does not mean becoming an expert in multiple fields. No practitioner can master and keep up with the countless legal specialties that exist. However, an international practitioner should try to amass enough knowledge to be able to identify critical issues on a client’s behalf.
Sébastien Savage, who practices in the Montreal office of Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg, may face hundreds of different issues in any given month, which makes his work challenging and exciting. “Sure, it is stressful,” he says, “but I firmly believe that staying flexible and versatile as an attorney has enhanced my practice, both in terms of the number of clients and in terms of the quality of services delivered.”
Sébastien also stays informed about his clients’ businesses: “I find that the more I know and the better I understand the businesses of my clients, the better equipped I am to face the requirements of evolving in a global economy.”
Lawyers living and working in foreign offices particularly need to be able to spot issues. Rather than remain isolated from the wealth of knowledge in their home offices, these foreign-based attorneys must sharpen their issue-spotting skills so that they can raise red flags when needed.
Once an international attorney spots an important issue outside of her expertise, she must then know how to resolve it. Sometimes this requires bringing in foreign counsel, and perhaps most important, knowing the right questions to ask in order to get a clear response. For example, asking a civil law lawyer questions while using purely common law concepts and lingo will confuse the situation—and may result in an inaccurate or unclear answer. Salli Swartz notes the particular challenge of “trying to explain to American/Anglo Saxon legal systems clients the differences between consequential damages under U.S. law and direct damages under French law…”
Many successful international lawyers improve their understanding by digging into the original legal sources—even those written in foreign languages—rather than relying on secondary translations. Using a dictionary, and comparing an original legal text with multiple English translations of it, can give a lawyer critical insights about what a foreign law really says and means.
Adjust Your International Practice To Meet Market Demands
Sometimes a lawyer plans to develop a particular international specialty, but client and market demands cause the lawyer’s practice to evolve in a different way. A versatile international lawyer is well positioned to respond to these changes. As Ed Lebow, who practices in Haynes & Boone’s Washington, D.C. office, explains, “My college concentration was in Japanese language, history and culture, and that set me up to handle antidumping cases for Japanese clients into the middle 1990’s. However, with the changes in the Japanese economy and the decreasing number of new US antidumping cases brought each year, particularly against the Japanese, I needed some flexibility. For me, that has meant a subtle shift in both my subject matter and geographic emphasis. While I still do handle antidumping and countervailing duty reviews, much of my newer work is in the much more active area of ITC Section 337 investigations that address imports that allegedly infringe US patents. And my clients are now more likely to be located in India (dumping and countervailing duties) and Taiwan (Section 337) than in Japan.”
Having the flexibility and versatility to respond to market changes, as Ed does, helps an international practice thrive even when the market shifts.
In other words, versatility makes a lawyer more attractive to clients. As Gerard Meijer explains, “I really get the impression that clients appreciate that I have been involved in a variety of disputes, which gives the client the confidence that I can make myself familiar with their case.”
After all, that’s what all lawyers strive for: a client’s confidence and satisfaction.
_________
FOOTNOTES
1. “We Listened to Associates. Now Partners have to Do Their Bit”, TheLawyer.com, 23 October 2006.
Many of us think that good negotiating requires special talent. Two Harvard Business School professors beg to differ. As Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman explain in their recent release Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond, anyone can learn systematic strategies to negotiation success.
The authors describe in detail how to claim and create value in negotiation, how to use strategies of influence, and the like. Lawyers will hearken back to law school when the authors use the case study method as a teaching tool.
Although the book doesn’t delve deeply into cross-cultural negotiation, it does emphasize the importance of building trust between the parties–particularly in the cross-cultural context. The authors also discuss negotiation strategies used by diplomats; high level diplomats recognize the importance of, and gathering relevant data in anticipation of, the future. In contrast, the authors note, most negotiators focus too much on current issues and fail to look forward.
During an email exchange with Deepak Malhotra, he shared some additional thoughts about international negotiations. First, I asked him whether there were any specific resources that he recommended about building cross-cultural negotiation skills. He replied, “I have yet to read a book on cross-cultural negotiation skills that has impressed me. Part of the problem is that there are too many differences across cultures, and often there are many different cultures across industries within the same country. As a result, broad (and even moderately broad) generalizations do not help much. The best resource is talking to people who have negotiated in the part of the world you’re now entering. And, even if you don’t have access to any such person, there’s nothing wrong with having a candid conversation with your counterpart in the negotiation about their (and your) perspectives and expectations.”
Second, I asked him to identify the biggest mistakes that US negotiators make during cross-cultural business negotiations, and how to avoid such mistakes. Deepak Malhotra answered: “For the most part, gone are the days when US negotiators were so ethnocentric that they walked into a negotiation in another country assuming that everyone shares their norms and values. However, two mistakes are still quite frequent. First, many negotiators rely on stereotypes and broad generalizations regarding how ‘people in that country’ negotiate. Many of these beliefs are anchored in decades old anecdotes and folk wisdom that have not been sufficiently updated and are not particularly nuanced. Second, negotiators spend too little time on ‘cultural differences’ other than those that relate to norms and values. For example, too little time is spent understanding structural problems that can arise in a foreign country such as (1) how easy is it to run a business in that country, (2) how strong and reliable are the legal institutions in that country, (3) how much of a role does the government play in business negotiations (e.g., by controlling permits), (4) how reliable is the infrastructure (e.g., roads, communication, etc.) in that country, etc. These elements, when they are not anticipated, can entirely derail otherwise well-conceived deal.”
Great point. As any international business lawyer knows, such “structural problems” often make or break the deal.Many thanks to Deepak Malhotra for sharing his wisdom.
Fellow international attorney Ed Lebow and I met last year at an international law conference. Ed has spent a lot of time both negotiating for Japanese clients and against Japanese counterparts. As a former Assistant General Counsel of the U.S. International Trade Commission, and now a member of Haynes & Boone’s International Trade and Customs Practice Group in Washington, D.C., Ed has had over 20 years’ experience in major Antidumping, Countervailing Duty and Section 337 cases.
Ed, a Japanese speaker and Japanophile, shares some tips with non-Japanese lawyers and businesspersons about how to negotiate with the Japanese. Click here to read his Cross-Cultural Reflections on Negotiating with Japanese Businessmen.pdf.
Thank you for sharing your insights, Ed!
Now there’s one-top shopping for finding ADR information. Look no further than the World Directory of Alternative Dispute Resolution Blogs compiled by mediator and blogger Diane Levin. If you have an ADR inquiry, there’s bound to be a blog listed that addresses your issue.
Speaking of International ADR, this past week Diane Levin blogged about new podcast series by the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR). Titled International Dispute Negotiation, the podcasts discuss how professionals from different cultures approach ADR; they are hosted by Michael McIlwrath, Senior Counsel, Litigation for GE Infrastructure - Oil & Gas, both from his Florence, Italy home base and from the road. (What a great home base, Michael!)
Thanks to Dan Hull’s What about the Clients? for having alerted me to this topic.
