Our team is headed by the following principal attorneys

Michael J. Hogg

International Co-Counsel and Foreign Local Counsel Resources

InternationalCounsel expands the capabilities of its principal attorneys both through its international co-counsel team members as well as through its local counsel resources in Europe, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere.

Such resources are further supplemented by our legal process outsourcing initiative with India >>

International Co-Counsel

While InternationalCounsel's team is led by our principal attorneys, our international co-counsel offer our clients an expanded team and additional expertise.

Similar to the backgrounds of our principal attorneys, our international co-counsel include exceptional former in-house international counsel. As members of our team, these senior attorneys expand our capabilities to serve our clients. Importantly, ongoing oversight from our principal attorneys continues to assure prompt delivery of services with a consistent level of quality and results.

Our team includes the following highly-capable professionals with senior experience:

Asia Regional Counsel. In part because of time-zone differences and the diverse range of legal challenges throughout the Asia-Pacific region, we look to our colleague in Hong Kong to play an on-the-ground "Asia regional counsel" role.

Gary Wong is an exceptional former in-house international executive with a particular focus on cross-border matters in Asia. While legal advice is provided through our principal attorneys in Chicago, Gary further enables us to assist U.S. and Europe-based clients in Asia.

• During his 20+ years of experience, Gary has been based in Hong Kong and New York, where for several years he practiced with Skadden Arps
• Gary practiced in-house over a 10-year period, including as Chief Legal Counsel with both Arco Chemical Asia Pacific Ltd. and Lyondell Asia Pacific Ltd.
• Gary is conversant in Mandarin Chinese and has a working knowledge of Cantonese
• His educational background includes a law degree from University of California, Hastings College of Law, where his academic performance earned him Order of the Coif, as well as an undergraduate degree from the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania

Practice Areas and Geographies

• Corporate and Commercial Agreements
  • Acquisitions
  • Joint Ventures and Other Equity Investments
  • Manufacturing Agreements
  • Licenses
  • Agency and Distribution Agreements
• Market Entry Strategies and Structures
• Corporate Governance, Compliance, Regulatory and Anti-Corruption Initiatives
• Management of International Litigation  and Intellectual Property
• Work with China, Japan, Taiwan and 20+ Other Countries

Europe Regional Counsel. We look to our colleague in the Netherlands as well as Paris to play an on-the-ground "Europe regional counsel" role.

Jan Kooi is an exceptional former in-house international legal counsel with a focus on cross-border tax and corporate matters in both Europe and Asia.

• During his 25+ years of experience, Jan has been based in Paris, London and Amsterdam, as well as in Tokyo for several years in charge of Asia for a prominent Dutch law firm (he had also opened that firm’s Paris office).
• From 1997 to 2004, Jan was European Tax Counsel for Omnicom Group Inc, the worldwide advertising and marketing group of companies, while based in London. In addition to his tax advice for Omnicom, Jan was also active with merger and acquisition negotiations and structuring, post-acquisition reorganizations, key executive compensation and financial instruments.
• Jan is fluent in French, Dutch, English (speaking, reading and writing) and German (with near-fluent writing). He has basic speaking and good reading abilities in Spanish, Italian, Swedish and Norwegian

Practice Areas and Geographies

• Cross-Border Tax, Asia and Europe Focus
• Corporate and Commercial Agreements
• Market Entry Strategies
• Work with Japan, China, India, The Netherlands, France, Germany, As Well As 30+ Other Countries

U.S. Based International Counsel.  Our team also includes other senior lawyers with substantial international experience.

Patricia H. Gill is an exceptional former in-house international attorney who brings us additional depth for cross-border matters with Latin America, Central America and Mexico.

• Pat practiced in-house over a 16-year period with Motorola, Inc. where she supported the network infrastructure equipment sales in Latin America.
• As part of her in-house and law firm experience, she has structured, negotiated and closed major complex transactions as well as the broad range of day-to-day corporate and commercial contracts and other matters that most companies face.
• For example, she was the lead attorney for the first digital network in the Latin America region, a $200 million agreement for the sale of infrastructure equipment in Argentina and a $66 million system expansion project in Mexico.
• Pat is fluent in Spanish and is able to negotiate deals and draft agreements in Spanish
• Her educational background includes a B.A. in Spanish from the University of Wisconsin and a law degree from The John Marshall Law School.

Practice Areas and Geographies

• Cross-Border Transactions, Latin America Focus
• Corporate and Commercial Agreements
• Market Entry Strategies
• Work with Latin America (such as Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay and Bolivia), Central America (such as Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Honduras), Mexico, Spain, China, Taiwan As Well As 10+ Other Countries

Thomas P. Holden is a commercial attorney with more than 25 years of unusually broad in-house international and U.S. domestic experience in the outsourcing, consulting, pharmaceutical and telecommunications industries.

• With Motorola, Inc., his roles included Lead Asian Counsel in Hong Kong for 6 years and General Counsel of the Network Management Group for 8 years
• In this divisional General Counsel role, Tom was responsible for all legal aspects of forming, managing and operating cellular telephone joint ventures in more than 25 countries in both developed (such as Japan and Korea) and particularly developing economies (ranging from China and India to Latin and Central America, Asia and Africa
• From Motorola, Tom became Senior International Counsel with Abbott Laboratories, with responsibility for international mergers and acquisitions, in-bound and out-bound licensing activity and general commercial counseling
• To add to his telecommunications and life science experience base, Tom then became Outsourcing Counsel for Accenture LLP, responsible for the legal and regulatory support for Accenture’s worldwide procurement services outsourcing business
• This corporate and commercial experience was built on an earlier foundation in litigation with a well-regarded Chicago law firm, giving Tom added sensitivity to how to avoid and resolve disputes and carrying over to his current interest in mediation and arbitration
• Tom’s educational background includes a B.S. in Business Economics from Purdue University (he was on Purdue’s  Big 10 football team) and a law degree from The John Marshall Law School

Practice Areas and Geographies

• Cross-Border and U.S. Transactions, Global Experience Base
• Corporate and Commercial Agreements
• Joint Venture and Outsourcing Deals
• M&A Purchases, Sales and Due Diligence
• Market Entry Strategies
• Work with 40+ Countries, Including While Based in Hong Kong

Foreign Local Counsel

As discussed in our Practice Summary, while our approach is to handle much of the structuring, drafting and negotiating of projects based on our internal skill-set and access to local law materials, many of our projects require the input of on-the-ground resources in our clients' target countries.

Up-to-the-minute guidance on applicable law and practice as well as its critical real-world application is essential to the process. We have also developed ways to manage and control foreign local counsel resources at substantial cost savings to our clients.

Similar to the practice of major multinational companies, we continually monitor the capabilities of outstanding lawyers in Europe, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere. When these lawyers have proven themselves to be both excellent sources of substantive advice as well as sensitive to our needs for responsiveness and cost-control, the lawyers are added to our working group of "preferred partners."

We also evaluate such lawyers in accordance with best practices in handling confidentiality, conflict avoidance and other ethical matters.

The fee statements of our local counsel colleagues are integrated with ours, allowing for our review and close management of overall costs and resource allocation.