Blake Bailey obtained his Juris Doctorate from Baylor Law School in 1973. He is a prominent Texas attorney with over 35 years of practice experience, between 150-200 jury trials and over 40 appellate cases tried. He has received verdicts on subjects ranging from medical malpractice, consumer protection, environmental protection, product liability, industrial disease, to automobile accidents. Professor Bailey has been listed by Fortune Magazine as one of the top 500 lawyers in America. He was also featured on the television series “America’s Premier Lawyers.” He has authored several professional articles on topics related to workers compensation, sexual abuse law and more, plus, for pleasure he authored three published novels. In the course of his career, he has taught guest lectures and seminars at Baylor Law School, South Texas College of Law, and Houston Law School, as well as giving short courses in American law and dispute resolution at law schools in Udmurtia and Perm. In 2010, Blake Bailey limited his private practice to run as a candidate for the Supreme Court of Texas. Although he didn’t win, his loss is Pericles’ gain, because this freed his time to spend a whole semester in Russia. At Pericles he is teaching Professional Responsibility and other topics as a visiting professor in the Fall Semester of 2011. He is also continuing his practice as “Of Counsel” with the Martin Walker Law Firm in Texas.

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, and in 2010 to teach Emerging Markets in the University of San Diego summer program. 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.

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 and team teaches Business Organizations with Professor Webb.

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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Engle, Eric

B.A., Queen's (Canada), J.D. St. Louis, (U.S.A.), D.E.A. Paris II, D.E.A. Paris X (France), LL.M., Dr.Jur. Bremen, (Germany). Dr. Engle has over sixty law review publications as well as several books in print. He works as a research aid and legal translator at Harvard Law School. Dr. Engle has taught law at the Creapole-ESDI, France, Universitaet Bremen, Germany, and Tartu University, Estonia. Eric Engle is Pericles' newest visiting Professor and will be teaching European Union Law, Law and Economics and Legal English in Fall 2010.

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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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Hovey, Ryan

After receiving a BA in International Relations and Business from the University of San Diego, Ryan Hovey 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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Josefson, Jennifer

Jennifer Josefson is a member of King & Spalding’s Global Transactions Practice Group. She specializes in Russian and international transactions in the energy and natural resources sector, regularly advising clients on M&A and joint venture arrangements, joint operating agreements (JOAs), concessions, PSAs, farm-ins, supply and service agreements and international arbitration in the subsoil and energy sectors. She is ranked as one of the top energy and natural resource lawyers in Russia by Chambers Global, PLC Which Lawyer, and the Who's Who of International Oil and Gas Lawyers. Ms. Josefson is a Vice President of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN) and was the founding regional director of AIPN's CIS Chapter, from 2005 to 2008.

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Kafiabadi, Soroush

Soroush Kafiabadi graduated with an LL.B. from King's College London and LL.M. from University of London. He has since been practicing in a mediation-arbitration capacity at the Financial Ombudsman Service based in London, UK. The Financial Ombudsman Service is an entity established by parliament to mediate financial disputes between financial institutions and their clients. Mr. Kafiabadi's work involves seeking resolution to all financial disputes (from banking, investment and insurance sectors) without recourse to formal legal proceeding before the courts. In his spare time Mr. Kafiabadi coaches UK law students in international law and mooting skills for the Jessup, and has come to Russia several times to judge the Russian regional Jessup competition. Mr. Kafiabadi will be coming again to Russia in November 2011 to teach a short course in Mediation Skills at Pericles.

 

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Katsis, Demos

Demos Katsis is a Corporate Counsel, Partner and Managing Director of KATSIS LLC, Law Firm based in Cyprus. He was a partner at Christodoulos G. Vassiliades & Co. before establishing in Limassol the innovative law firm KATSIS LLC, consisted of experienced Greek and Russian persons. He specialises in contractual drafting and consulting on corporate and tax strategies. His main areas of practice are contractual and company matters, construction, trusts and estate planning, tax, and intellectual property matters. He holds an LLB degree from the University of Bristol, an LLM degree from the University of Bristol, a Diploma in Professional Legal Skills from City University and MA from the University of Malta. He was admitted to the Cyprus Bar in 2003 and is a member of the Cyprus Bar Association. He is the author of several articles and a regular speaker in tax conferences, intellectual property conferences and immovable property conferences organised by various organisations. Mr Katsis was assistant National Rapporteur for Cyprus for the EU Project on Unfair Commercial Practices in the new Member States for the year 2005-2006 undertaken by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and he was also assistant National Rapporteur for Cyprus for the EU Project on Legalization of Public Documents undertaken by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. He is a visiting professor at Pericles, engaged to teach Anglo Saxon and International Trust law, and also an occassional guest seminar presenter on issues related to offshore and Cyprus business planning.

 

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Kosnitzky, Michael

Michael Kosnitzky is a partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner, in charge of its Tax and Middle Market Practice Group.   He is listed in Chambers USA as a leader in the field of tax law, in the publication the Best Lawyers in America in Tax Law and in the Florida and New York-Metro editions of Super Lawyers in Tax.  Mr. Kosnitzky's practice includes representation of both domestic and foreign high net worth individuals and companies.  He has represented many international clients in both taxable and tax-free mergers and acquisitions, business combinations, equity and debt financing, corporate joint ventures and other strategic alliances.  He is not only a lawyer but a former practicing certified public accountant with a national accounting firm.  He is currently the Chair of the American Bar Association's National Conference of Lawyers and CPA's.  Mr. Kosnitzky has authored numerous articles in U.S. tax journals.  He has been a member of the Adjunct Tax Faculty at the University of Miami School of Law Graduate Tax Program, and is a frequent lecturer for the University of Miami, the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and numerous other organizations.

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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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Levy, Robert

Robert G. Levy is a retired lecturer in antitrust law from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.    Mr. Levy obtained his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and immediately began his specialty as a prosecutor with the United States Department of Justice, Antitrust Division. After cutting his teeth with the government, he entered private practice in antitrust, where he quickly became partner with Frank, Bernstein, Conaway and Goldman in Baltimore, and later with  Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan in Washington, D.C.  In 1990, Mr. Levy took up a part time academic career, teaching Anti-Trust Law & Economics at Yale University, and then at John’s Hopkins University, where he remained until his retirement in 2008.  Mr. Levy has been a frequent lecturer and panelist at numerous antitrust conferences, including seminars for the American Bar Association and for New York Law Journal. He is also interested in intellectual property law and litigation.  Mr. Levy is visiting with Pericles to teach Antitrust Law in conjunction with Torsten Syrbe for the fall semester of 2011.

 

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Lissniak, Vladimir

Christopher Osakwe holds a B.A. in Jurisprudence from Oxford, a J.D. from the University of Illinois and a Candidate of Law from Moscow State University. He is a retired professor of comparative law at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, and he comes to Moscow every Spring to teach and research. Professor Osakwe teaches contract law and tort law at Pericles, and teaching courses on comparative civil law at Moscow State Institute for International Relations and the Higher School of Economics. 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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