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Explore. Dream. Discover.
Working Abroad in the Legal Profession
Amy Montemarano
Even before the recent economic downturn caused many U.S. law firms to shift their attention to overseas markets, American-trained lawyers had several avenues for international opportunities. Major law firms have operated for years in China, Japan, and Western Europe, but the expansion of the European Union and the new globalization of conventional law practice have opened doors for expatriate lawyers in other areas of the world as well.
In the huge oil-rich country of Kazakhstan in Central Asia, a University of Houston Law Center graduate practices energy law with the American firm of Bracewell & Guiliani, L.L.P. In India, two University of Pennsylvania Law School grads co-founded Pangea3, one of a multitude of legal outsourcing firms that appear to have sprouted overnight (and whose continued success is now shadowed by the massive fraud at India's Satyam Computer Services). In Munich, where a branch of the European Patent Office is located, a Fort Lee, N.J. native runs her own international patent law firm. And in Australia, a lawyer from California recreated his legal career from scratch in a small town outside Brisbane.
These expatriate lawyers offer different reasons for making the move – capital and career opportunities, a post-9/11 yearning for connection in a changed world, simple wanderlust.
For Nick Bonarrigo, working abroad was the serendipitous result of a series of international work assignments that landed on his desk. In 2007, Bonarrigo was a young lawyer in the Pittsburgh office of Reed Smith L.L.P., barely four years out of Washington & Lee University School of Law. In his first few years of law practice, he worked on assignments for a client with active global interests, providing him with experience in international law. That experience led to an opportunity to transfer to Reed Smith's then newly opened office in Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates. Within several months of agreeing to the transfer, Bonarrigo, a self-described "Italian kid from Queens" who had never before traveled outside the United States, found himself living in the Arabian Peninsula, meeting regularly with Arab lawyers and businessmen.
Why did he choose to go to Dubai? Bonarrigo's short answer is, "Have you seen this place?" His longer answer is that he was intrigued not only by the opportunity to live and do business in a Muslim country, but also by everything that Dubai has to offer: nice weather, terrific expansion, tourist attractions, and a central location for other travel, as well as a rich community of expatriates. He also says that his experience working abroad will immeasurably help his career advancement, if and whenever he decides to return to the United States.
While the expatriate experience can be rewarding, the transition is not easy and often requires years of specialized experience or preparation. The most direct route to living and working abroad is the one taken by lawyers like Bonarrigo: a transfer to a U.S. law firm's international office. A year or two ago, most major U.S. firms were rapidly expanding their overseas practices, making these kinds of opportunities more available than ever. In the current economic downturn, overseas opportunities still exist, but a big-firm lawyer looking to become an expatriate must be more strategic and flexible.
But what if you don't work for a major U.S. law firm or have years of international law experience? Shelley Wieck was a 39-year-old family lawyer in South Dakota when she decided to make the move abroad. At the top of her game and owner of her own small firm, she treated herself to adventure travels through Nepal, Patagonia, Chile, and Peru. She believed she had "finally achieved the epitome of success to be able to spend holidays traveling to exotic places around the world." But she felt a pull to do something more. "I began to realize that it wasn't enough to simply tour through a country with my backpack and Sherpas carrying my bag, but that I really wanted to live in these countries, learn their languages, and try truly to understand their peoples' lives and the challenges they face," she says. In December 1999, while in Peru watching the sun rise on the new millennium over Machu Picchu, she made the decision to change her life.
The decision was made in an instant; however, the process of changing her life took three years to implement and is still continuing. Wieck sold her house, phased out her law practice, struggled to explain her decision to her worried parents and, in 2003, joined the Peace Corps as a mid-career volunteer. After one year with the Peace Corps in the small Southeast Asian nation of East Timor and another two years there in a paid position with Avocats Sans Frontieres (Lawyers without Borders), Wieck became the country director for the American Bar Association's Rule of Law Initiative (ROLI) in the Eastern European nation of Ukraine, where she has lived and worked for the past three years.
In her ROLI position, she works in the areas of anti-corruption, counter-human trafficking, criminal law reform, law enforcement reform, legal education reform, bar association development, clinical legal education, and institution building involving advocacy non-governmental organizations – a far cry from South Dakota family law. While her career in international legal development is a work in progress, she says she doesn't miss practicing family law or living in the United States (except for her family and small luxuries such as drugstore pantyhose). "I entered this new career path with incredible idealism, hope and optimism," she explains. "I was open to wherever this new path would lead and for the first time in my life did not have a five-to-10-year plan that I was trying to implement. The challenges and struggles encountered along the way are all part of the wonderful adventure that I have been on."
Such "wonderful adventures" are often accompanied by a steep learning curve, as much in acclimating to a new culture as in adjusting to the new job. A growing number of web sites, including , , and , are specifically designed to help ease the transition for expatriates.
At least one lawyer, Janet H. Moore, has even used the globalization of law to create her own niche as an international lawyer coach. After practicing international business law for 15 years, Moore hired a lawyer coach and found the experience "transformational." So she got training and became a coach herself. Now she coaches, consults, and trains on global law practice. Some of her clients seek her help in customizing and implementing a global rainmaking strategy at their firms. Other clients include in-house and government lawyers who want help with career issues such as moving up the career ladder, transitioning within or outside the law, or breaking into an international practice. Many of their challenges, she says, are the same as those faced by U.S. domestic lawyers: how to develop more clients (especially with the global recession) and how to be effective leaders, managers, and communicators. |
