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How Can U.S. Law Help Me Outside the U.S.?

How Can U.S. Law Help Me Outside the U.S.?

Hi, my name is Pablo Iannello. I'm a visiting professor at University of Dayton Law School. I'm also a professor at UADE, one of the partner universities with the online LLM of the university's law school. The purpose of this presentation is to provide some insights about the relevance of getting a deeper knowledge of US law.

So basically, why understanding US law might be relevant for your career? That's why in the presentation, we start with this question on how knowledge of US law helped me in my career outside the US, in case that you ever would like to pursue a career outside of your country and in other parts of the world. So basically, this is a little bit about me. There you have my email in case you wanted to reach me.

So, here's a question for you. Why pursue an LLM in US law? Well, knowing a little bit about US law will provide you accessibility and benefits to lawyer from all jurisdictions. Needless to explain the importance of the relevance of the US legal system in the global legal landscape, the US legal system work and was used in order to draft a lot of international conventions. So, having knowledge on the US legal system will also help you to understand the content of many treaty law out there. There are emerging fields and career opportunities for future practitioners just like you, that might be at practice at the global level that might require some knowledge in US law.

So, let's move on a little bit and see some true or false things that I recall from my time as a law student. This is one that was very popular in my time at Glasgow. So if you study law, you can only practice law in your home country. So basically, if you decide to pursue a law career, then you're done. You can never practice outside of your home country. Well, that's completely false. Western legal traditions contain similarities that allow attorneys to understand the legal system despite the knowledge of their own home base jurisdiction.

Another thing that's not entirely truth, not at all I would say is that common law legal system. The US legal system is a common law based system are only based in case law. This is pretty much based on movies and series that you see actors and actresses in court quoting cases. Well, this is not true at all. You have the US code, the Uniform Commercial Code just for quoting some very important and relevant statutes in the US. They do have statutory law.Another thing, another myth I would say is that if you're a civil law attorney. Basically if you're coming from a country with a civil law jurisdiction, there is no way that you can understand common law way of thinking. That's not true at all, or you need to pursue the entire law degree again. Well, not necessarily. It might be a possibility, but there are other choices that I'm going to share with you in a minute.

The last thing I would like to mention on this true or false thing is that, well, companies and law firms only hire attorneys from their home country. In a globalized world, let me tell you that this is false. More and more law firms and companies are looking for attorneys that might help them to understand the needs of their clients. Sometimes the clients, many times I would add are US companies. So they could appreciate someone that can have this double background learning, have learned some US law, but also may have knowledge on their home country legislation in case.

Okay. So something that is important if you would like to pursue a career outside of your home country, and you would like to have a deeper knowledge of US legal system, is that you need to plan strategically. What does it mean? Well basically, you need to have some knowledge of the legal systems that are usually selected by parties in order to solve disputes, needless to say, the relevance of US law on this matter.

Parties many times tend to pick up US law for many different reasons in order to solve dispute. Jurisdiction clause, applicable law clauses many times contains forums in the US and applicable law in the US. As I said before, the influence of the US law has been particularly relevant in drafting treaties. An example of this might be the Vienna Convention for Sales of Goods of 1980s, or in the US, this is known as a CISG. So, just this an example. There are many other ones. Perhaps the TRIPS, some of the content on the TRIPS are related with the way IP law, intellectual property law is exercised in the US.

Last but not least, and this is particularly important. Speaking the language of those that might be your clients or employers is a key for you if you want to improve your global performance. Basically, telling a client that is a US company or a US law firm and you can connect with them speaking their own language, that will give you a significant plus in your career.

How can I use my knowledge of US law without living and working in USA? So, this is a thing that some people ask me because sometimes this is okay. If I have knowledge in the US law, then I have to move to the US. I would love to have the knowledge, but I'm not planning to move to the US. Well, you don't have to. There are a lot of working opportunities out there that are waiting for you that might require some knowledge on the US law, but it doesn't necessarily means that you have to move to the US.

So for example, working for branches of US companies or office of US law firm overseas. They will really appreciate having people with knowledge on US law. The role of attorneys is changing from litigation to counseling. So basically, you are working more on a transactional role. The more legal system you know, the better for you, and having the knowledge on those key legal system like the US is essential.

There are some growing areas that will allow attorneys to practice overseas and perhaps you can do it from your home country, but your client is in the United States. For example, criminal compliance. Everything related with law and technology including data privacy, cryptocurrency regulation, smart contracts, intellectual property law. This is a very global area. Tax and international business transactions, we are seeing more and more globalized world today, might require attorneys train in more than one legal system.

Last but not least, immigration law. In a globalized world, immigration regulations are becoming very, very popular. Also because an obvious fact, which was the pandemic, remote work is becoming more and more popular nowadays. I'm sure that you may come up with examples of remote work in your home countries, even for domestic companies.

So that remote work allowed US companies to outsource legal work, especially in areas that as I mentioned before, that might require legal research, document review, et cetera. So, this is a clearly important issue for you to keep in mind. This is something that I was mentioning just a minute ago that might be worth to go again and take a quick look that are the areas showing potential growing in the next decade.

So, this is closely related with this planning strategically. When you have to pick up the area of your study, okay, you want to pick up something that is going to growth in the following years. So, law and technology as I said, privacy issues. Privacy is becoming a really essential matter for attorneys. Fintech and crypto regulation, intellectual property and healthcare, especially since the pandemic, this became a real important matter. Environmental law, energy law, and sustainability. Generally speaking, everything related with how are we going to make living possible in the following century. This is huge.

Immigration law, anti-corruption, money laundering compliance, those are growing areas too since the world is becoming more and more globalized. Also because the need of states of getting more resources, statutes are trying to pursue more taxes. So a lot of transactions, finding the way of trying to overturn this tax regulation is growing. So, this will lead you to the international tax law arena.

So I hope with this, you can at least give a thought of pursuing a career that might include some knowledge on US law, even if you want to stay in your home country. There's not much that I can add, more than say thank you to you for your attention. I hope to see you soon. Take care.

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