Staying the International Course:
Tips From a Practitioner

by Gabe Shawn Varges *

A predictable source of disappointment each year for faculty and school administrators is the small percentage of law school graduates who actually go on to public service jobs in comparison to the number expressing interest in the field when initially applying to law school.

It may raise less public concern, but a disparity also exists between the number of law students and young lawyers who initially contemplate an international legal career versus those who ultimately pursue one. Somewhere along the way many would be internationalists, by choice or necessity, decide to guide their careers in alternate directions. Sometimes they are dissuaded by the seeming paucity of truly international job opportunities or by the lure of more lucrative options in other areas. Other times it happens by lack of planning or due to personal hardships commonly involved in working in the international arena (frequent travel, uprooting and moving, less career certainty, etc.).

Lost whenever a potential international lawyer seeks other pastures are the skills, passion and sensitivity for things international which those drawn to the field tend to bring with them. Many of us active internationally feel, perhaps unfairly, a sense of mismatch whenever we encounter, for example, a former Peace Corps volunteer doing local trust and estates in a tucked-away suburban law office, even while we fully realize it is a perfectly honorable vocation and perhaps the right choice for that individual.

In this book and elsewhere you will receive sufficient admonitions about unrealistic expectations of what it is like to be an international lawyer and even about whether on can really speak of practicing "international law." Heed most of the warnings because they contain much truth. But if there is an "international fire" in your belly, don't let it extinguish without a fight. Here are a few tips that might help whether you decide your main direction is private practice, company in-house lawyering or governmental service.

Prove First You Can Be A Good Domestic Lawyer

This has two aspects. First, be sure you get well under your belt that battery of "lawyering" skills common to most areas of practice-things such as advocacy, negotiation, writing, analytical, information management, and pressure-handling skills. Although you will surely have begun developing these skills as a law student, they are best tested and enhanced through actual legal practice. In choosing your first legal experience, thus, select what will provide you the most rigorous training in the highest quality environment you can find, and not necessarily what seems the most "international." Think of your first legal job, or the initial phase of your career, as your "undergraduate" training, which will be indispensable to whatever "graduate program" you ultimately choose.

Second, work hard to gain and maintain a comfortable command of key areas of U.S. domestic law. No matter how global your practice may ultimately become, you will need as an American lawyer a solid anchor in U.S. law and U.S. legal practices. Domestic law serves in many ways as a lawyer's "mother tongue"-the language of reference for conducting comparative analyses and sanity checks when facing complex international and foreign law issues. Moreover, a good portion of what one does as an international lawyer touches in one way or another the U.S. legal system. For example, certain U.S. laws are sometimes looked to as a model in other countries (as was the case in Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin wall) and it is not uncommon in international transactions for parties to select the law of a U.S. state- such as New York or Delaware- to govern their commercial relations. Aside from voluntary applications of U.S. law, one also has to be prepared for its uninvited reach into foreign activities. Anti-trust, securities, trade sanctions, employment anti-discrimination and even consumer protection are some of the areas where the arm of U.S. jurisdiction indeed stretches a long way. Even European lawyers doing a seemingly local transaction sometimes need to worry about U.S. law implication. Hence, extend yourself as far out as you wish internationally, but to maximize your effectiveness don't fail to keep a foot in the U.S. legal system.

International Expertise Does Matter

While the domestic skills discussed above are essential, they are not by any means sufficient. Be wary of those who claim you can get by internationally only with American legal skills.

As a start, it is worthwhile to include in your law school studies courses in foreign and comparative law. These are particularly useful when focused on specific areas, such as-depending on your substantive or geographic interest-banking law or European Union law. If your law school offers a semester exchange program at a foreign university or a summer work program with foreign law firms or governments, take advantage of it so you can deepen your foreign law knowledge. Other basic courses worth taking include conflicts of law, international organizations, international business transactions, international trade, and traditional public international law. International courses in other disciplines-business, economics, politics, etc.-can also help complement your understanding of the context in which international law is practiced. And, of course, command of foreign languages is helpful in innumerable ways, notwithstanding the seeming universality of English.

Naturally, the above kind of learning should not stop after graduation. Whatever the nature of your immediate job, if your long term goal is an international career you need to make a conscious effort to stay on top of the field. Join and be active in groups like the American Society of International Law or the International Bar Association. Regularly review current international legal literature. Do research and write on the subject. The point is to treat internationalism as a discipline if you earnestly wish to make a specialty of it.

Minimize Thinking of International Law as Either Public or Private

With growing globalization in the public and private sectors and greater involvement of private parties in traditionally governmental activities (such as telecommunications and general infrastructure), it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify where private international law ends and public international law begins. This traditional bifurcation is helpful conceptually but in real world terms one would be misguiding future lawyers by suggesting they necessarily have to choose between them to prepare for an international career.

The reality is that lawyers in the private and governmental sectors are increasingly needing to handle issues arising under both sides of international law (as well as under that expanding but nebulous area in between the two). This cross-involvement happens by design, such as when a private company bids for a power plant project in Africa and has to abide by the rules of the local government and the international intergovernmental body helping finance the project, or when a state airline enters into a code sharing agreement with a private airline of another country. Other times the overlap occurs quite by happenstance such as when foreign companies suffered losses from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Suddenly these companies' lawyers found themselves having to figure out the best strategies for preparing their claims for submission to the special UN tribunal set up for this purpose. The strategies one would have used in a U.S. domestic court would not necessarily have won the day.

Don't Shy Away From Foreign Domestic Law

An important part of international legal practice is being able to understand and probe deeply into legal issues in other countries. International lawyers unable or unwilling to roll up their sleeves and review local legislation are not only less cost effective (they tend to incur much more in foreign outside counsel costs) but are less able to supervise and challenge such local counsel when needed. As an outsider one can bring to bear fresh perspectives to a local law question. Good local counsel should welcome such input. In yet other cases-subject to the constraints of local licensing requirements-the international lawyer is in as good a position as local counsel to interpret local legislation and legal developments. This tends to be primarily the case in certain emerging markets, but sometimes too in developed legal systems. In working with local laws, knowledge of the local language is always useful and sometimes indispensable.

Develop a Substantive Orientation, But Be Ready to Retool

Just as it is becoming increasingly difficult to be a generalist in domestic law, so too internationally. To be sure, there are risks to over-specialization and one has to be wary of "pseudo-specializations" reflecting only the narrow and sometimes transient practices of a particular Client "a special danger for government and company in-house lawyers). But on balance, a mastery of a complex area of the law or a certain industry or governmental sector can enhance your marketability both by the fact of your having a specialty and because such mastery is a good predictor of your ability to gain command of other areas when needed.

The ability to retool will become increasingly important as the changes affecting the legal profession today continue. Major consumers of legal services, such as large companies, are rethinking both their relation to law firms and their usage of in-house staff. Greater emphasis is being placed on value for the money and on strategically targeted legal advice. In-house legal departments are downsizing and remaining lawyers are being asked to assume more work, sometimes in areas where they have had little previous experience. On the governmental side, taxpayer pressure should continue to prevent any major increase in public sector hiring, including of lawyers. Similar pressures are affecting intergovernmental bodies like the World Bank and the United Nations.

The above changes-combined with the less predictable changes in the world arena and marketplace, such as political and military conflicts, the in-vogue/out-of-vogue nature of certain business strategies like mega-mergers, and the ups and downs of capital and commodity markets-will make for a legal environment where a key quality will be flexibility and the ability to change gears swiftly in response to new challenges.

Be Willing to Move Across Sectors

Due partly to the above, one can expect greater need for international lawyers able and willing to move across sectors. For example, a well-trained international food and drug lawyer with the right language skills ought to be as attractive an asset to an international drug company as to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the World Health Organization. This kind of cross-fertilization not only helps the entities in question but also provides the international lawyer a more stimulating career path.

Similarly, one is already seeing greater movement between private practice and in-house international lawyers. The trend until recently has been primarily one way: law firm lawyers joining companies. But gradually law firms are beginning to appreciate the unique skills-both substantive and in terms of ability to effectively counsel clients and provide business-sensitive legal advice-which good in-house lawyers tend to develop.

Accordingly, there is no reason to feel wedded for life to one sector, even though extra efforts may be needed to make a change.

Be Geographically Mobile

Perhaps more than in any other area of the law, international legal practice requires a willingness to pick up camp and relocate as opportunities arise. Commerce and Treasury Department lawyers who showed this flexibility landed terrific jobs in Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe following the fall of communism. In-house lawyers for Coca-Cola and other major multinationals who possess the right language and substantive skills are seen in many corners of the world. Law firms who have judiciously responded to the globalization trends have set up offices in key cities and sometimes in remote but emerging regions. The new World Trade Organization is currently hiring international lawyers of all nationalities with expertise in trade for their headquarters in Geneva. Naturally, these kind of opportunities will be open only to those whose sense of adventure and fascination with foreign cultures remain as high as when they first imagined what it would be like to be an international lawyer.

Put it All Together

No matter how brilliant your international skills, you may have little opportunity to use them if you ignore the more common-sense advice appropriately being dispensed today to all lawyers. Develop early a network of mentors and supportive acquaintances who can help you think through career options and identify job and client leads. Make yourself known to others in the field. Work on personal skills that help cement professional relationships at a human level. And don't neglect demonstrating regularly to clients and employers why your passion for the international world helps you serve their needs best.

* Chief Compliance Officer, Zurich Financial Services, a financial services and insurance multinational of nearly 70,000 employees in over 50 countries. Mr. Varges served previously as Headquarters International Counsel for American Express and as an attorney with Shearman & Sterling in New York and overseas. He is a former Board member of the New York County Lawyers Association and former President of the Global Counsel Association Europe. Currently he serves on the Conference Board's European Council on Corporate Governance and is co-chair of the Practicing Law Institute's Corporate Compliance Program. He is a member of the New York Bar and a graduate of Harvard.

Published with permission from Careers in International Law by the American Society of International Law, Washington, D.C. This publication This publication, which includes many other essays on a variety of practices in international law, is available in the NYLS Law Library's first floor reference area JX 1291.I58 1996 Ref.