Bruce Bean has a B.A. in international relations from Brown University and his J.D. from Columbia. Bruce practiced law for over 20 years in New York and California before moving to Moscow in 1995 to be managing partner of Coudert Brothers' Moscow office. Between 1998 and 2002, Bruce was the Head of the Corporate Department for Clifford Chance in Moscow. He was a member of the Board of Directors of the American Chamber of Commerce from 1996 to 2003 and was a founding director of the Institute of Corporate Law and Governance. Bruce taught the Business Organizations course in the spring 2003 semester and returned to Moscow in 2005 to teach International Business Transactions. Now a Professor in Residence at Michigan State College of Law, when in Moscow Bruce continues to teach at Pericles on a visiting professor basis.

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Bochnev, Valery

Valery Bochnev is a native of Russia who moved to the US  about 20 years ago.  He received his Bachelors, with honors, in economics from NYU and for his law degree he attended Rutgers University and Brooklyn Law School. He is a member of the New York Bar. He has worked in employee benefits administration for the Bank of America in San Francisco and has spent several years with law firms and in private practice in New York, dealing with contracts, real estate, immigration, insurance law and litigation. In 2006 he moved to Moscow as in-house counsel to an international film company representing the interests of Walt Disney, Columbia Pictures, Sony Entertainment and others. Valery also has experience teaching English in New York schools with the Kaplan company and freelancing in Moscow. Valery teaches Legal  English and Business Organizations at Pericles.

Patrick J. Brooks is a Senior Associate at the law firm of Squire, Sanders and Dempsey's Moscow office. He has a diverse corporate practice focused on cross-border transactions with a focus on mergers and acquisitions, private equity and corporate finance in Russia. He has represented both US and Russian companies in numerous M&A and investment ventures. Mr. Brooks focused the first 7 years of his legal career on corporate restructuring matters and U.S. bankruptcy law and has extensive experience in providing strategic counsel to distressed businesses, debtors, secured and unsecured creditors, asset purchasers and investors in connection with the restructuring and reorganization of distressed companies and the acquisition and divestiture and their assets. Mr. Brooks served as lead associate for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors of Enron Corp. in litigation seeking to avoid billions of dollars in transfers related to highly complex financing structures involving Enron and one of its tier-one banks. He leads the Mergers & Acquisitions Master Class at Pericles.

Marian Dent is the Dean of Pericles ABLE Project. Professor Dent teaches courses in legal skills, international business transactions and contract law. In addition to teaching law she also runs the GMAT program and teaches the logic section of the GMAT. Professor Dent obtained her Juris Doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall) in 1988. After graduating Ms. Dent joined the Washington, D.C. law firm of Kirkpatrick and Lockhart, and worked there for four years in the fields of East-West and international trade, securities and general business law. She moved to Moscow in 1992 to direct the Moscow office of the American Bar Association, CEELI Project. She has been teaching law and other courses with Pericles since 1995. She also teaches an introductory course in Russian Law for visiting students from the University of San Diego Law School.

Edward Donovan graduated with a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado and then received his J.D. from Southwestern University and in 1989, he began practicing with the Intellectual Property firm of Sheldon & Mak, before eventually forming his own firm with others. Mr. Donovan has spent many hours in U.S. Federal Courts litigating intellectual property claims for clients and representing their interests before the USPTO. Mr. Donovan has also represented various clients in general business affairs and U.S. Customs law, particularly in the international fashion and accessories industry. Mr. Donovan also teaches skiing and is a strong outdoor enthusiast. Mr. Donovan taught Intellectual Property Law, Business Organizations and Legal English at Pericles until 2009 when he returned to his private practice in his native Colorado, however we expect Professor Donovan to return to Moscow from time to time when he gets the urge to teach another course. He is a member of the Colorado Bar.

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Floudas, Demetrius A. M.-Alexander

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Firestone, Thomas

Thomas Firestone is Resident Legal Adviser at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.  He received a B.A. from Harvard College in 1986 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1993.  He also received an MA in International Relations from U.C. Berkeley in 1987.  Since 1998, Mr. Firestone has served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of New York, specializing in the investigation and prosecution of organized crime cases. Mr. Firestone has twice been detailed to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow as Resident Legal Adviser, in which capacity he works with Russian law enforcement, legislators and private attorneys on various legal issues, including issues related to anti-corruption, corporate raiding, antitrust enforcement, jury trials, and criminal procedure reform.  Prior to entering the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Mr. Firestone served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Allen G. Schwartz, United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and as an associate at the New York law firm of Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason and Silberberg, where he specialized in white collar criminal defense.  Mr. Firestone has published widely in U.S. and Russian law journals on issues related to organized crime and corruption. Tom teaches a special course in Corporate and White Collar Crime.

 

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Franczek, Art

Art Franczek is the president of the American Institute of Business & Economics (AIBEc), a top ranked Western style MBA program in Russia. He holds an MBA, a CPA and a Masters of Science in Taxation from DePaul University in Chicago, and worked as Corporate Tax Manager for seven years with a Fortune 1000 company dealing with federal and international tax issues involving 25 countries. He has several published articles on taxation issues, and has taught tax accounting, tax policy, comparative taxation and similar courses to business students for the past 20 years. He is a member of the American Chamber of Commerce Tax Committee, and Co-Chair of the Customs Committee, and in between teaching for AIBEc he is a frequently conference speaker on comparative taxation and tax accounting issues at various institutions and businesses around the world. He teaches Intro to U.S. Tax Law at Pericles.

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Hehir, Andrew

Andrew Hehir received his law degree from University College Dublin in 2003. Upon graduation Andrew worked in-house for an investment funds company for several years. In 2006, Andrew joined A&L Goodbody Solicitors where he specialized in investment funds law. In early 2008, Andrew moved to Moscow and took up a position with Baker & McKenzie's Moscow Office in the banking and finance division, where he worked until March of 2009. He has decided to exercise his desire to teach by joining Pericles full time. Andrew is a qualified Solicitor and a member of the New York State Bar; Andrew is also Fellow of the Institute of Arbitrators (London branch). He teaches European Union Law, Introduction to English Law, Banking and Financial Law, and Legal English courses at Pericles.

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Hovey, Ryan

After receiving a BA in International Relations and Business from the University of San Diego, Ryan was certified to teach English as a foreign language, and began his teaching career in Taiwan. Later, he began a corporate training business specializing in training professional language and communication skills in Beijing, China. Until 2005 Ryan was Pericles Associate Dean, directing marketing and PR activities, and taught TOEFL and Business English. Ryan then returned to the US where he took an MBA at University of Michigan GSB. After graduation he entered the health care and insurance field, where he still works successfully in the Michigan area. On an ad hoc basis Ryan helps Pericles students via email with choosing and applying to business school.

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Lebedeff, Alexander

Alexander Lebedeff, Alex to his friends, has a long background in test preparation and training. A native Californian, for three years he taught in and was later promoted to training teachers in an SAT, GMAT and GRE training center in Los Angeles. After that he took a position with Microsoft in training and support, and also went on to train for major companies such as Compuserve and JD Power & Associates. A few years later he decided to explore his ancestoral roots by moving to Russia and leveraging his training and computer skills to direct NIIT Training Center, a computer training program administered in conjunction with Moscow State University. Since January 2007, he has been teaching GMAT, TOEFL and SAT preparation for Pericles. He holds a B.A. in Psychology from UCLA, with an emphasis in human factors and cognitive science and with this background he takes pride in  being able to explain seemingly difficult topics to both high-schoolers and adults, placing an emphasis on understanding how test-writers think.  He says his most challenging teaching assignment of all is schooling his young daughter Sophia in Life 101.

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Lissniak, Vladimir

Christopher Osakwe holds a J.D. from the University of Illinois and a Candidate of Law from Moscow State University. He is currently a professor of comparative law at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana and he comes to Moscow every Spring to teach and research. Professor Osakwe likes to keep his Russian Springs busy: he is teaching contract law at Pericles, and is also teaching courses on comparative civil law at Moscow State University, MGIMO and MGUA. Professor Osakwe is the co-author of the most popular American textbook on comparative law, is the author of numerous articles on Russian and comparative law, and is the editor of a popular English translation and commentary on the Russian Civil Code. See a synopsis of Professor Osakwe's guest lecture on Comparative Law here.

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