Watch insightful interviews with leading voices in the international arbitration and ADR community.
California Conversations Episode 8 – Marco Molina
Marco Molina has represented clients before U.S. federal, state and administrative courts as well as before a variety of international arbitral tribunals, including the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and the affiliated International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), and in ad hoc arbitrations under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).
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California Conversations Episode 7 – Samir Shah
Samir Shah is a lawyer (in India), arbitrator, mediator, ADR trainer, mentor and cross-border business consultant, having an active professional career of 29 years. He owns his own law firm in India with a robust team of lawyers, paralegals, administrative and clerical associates representing and advising clients from diverse industries and providing varied legal consulting services both in litigation and non-litigation work. He has been personally focused and passionate about promoting ADR for more than 15 years. He is one of the the directors of CIArb India branch and the cofounder of ADR Bar. He recently relocated to USA as a permanent resident and is based out of Virginia.
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California Conversations Episode 6 – Apoorva Vijh
Chuck Dick introduces a new lawyer from India, Apoorva Vijh, who has migrated to the US. She shares her experience as an attorney working at the Supreme Court of India, where there is only one Super Supreme Court. She interned at Pepsico’s office in Delhi and worked with an attorney at the supreme court. She emphasizes the benefits of arbitration in resolving disputes and encourages clients to use it for quick results and better satisfaction. Chuck expresses concern about the backlog in India’s litigation system, which has a time limit of 18 months for awards to be available. They discuss the challenges of finding a job after graduating from college and the importance of understanding the law and its nitty-gritties.
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California Conversations Episode 5 – Steve Andersen
Chuck Dick interviews Steve Andersen. Steve recruits and maintains the highest qualified panel in those areas for the ICDR’s International Panel of Arbitrators and Mediators, with a focus on aerospace, aviation, national security, energy, and technology, among other industries. He is responsible for the ICDR’s cross-border arbitration and mediation in the region, providing executive oversight of large cases. Fluent in Spanish, he is the creator and manager of the ICDR Translation Committee.
Steve was appointed by the U.S. State Department as a member of the NAFTA 2022 Advisory Committee on Private Commercial Dispute Resolution and received the 2018 SVAMC (Silicon Valley Arbitration and Mediation Center) Award for Outstanding Contribution to Technology Dispute Resolution.
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California Conversations Episode 4 – Ken Korea
Colin Rule interviews Ken Korea. Ken is a technology transactions attorney, arbitrator and mediator with 29 years of experience in intellectual property licensing, litigation, and technology transactions. He practiced at leading US law firms and served as Senior Vice President at Samsung Electronics as the head of the Silicon Valley IP Office from 2011 to 2021. Ken has handled over two hundred IP litigation matters, negotiated many patent licenses including three of the largest patent cross license agreements, and helped clients to acquire companies ranging from startups to a multibillion dollar company. He serves as an arbitrator for American Arbitration Association (AAA), Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) and Korea Commercial Arbitration Board (KCAB) International and as a neutral for World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center.
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California Conversations Episode 3 – Kim Taylor
Charles Dick interviews Kim Taylor, President of JAMS, who is a key figure in that organization’s development of an international arbitration practice. A California native who practiced law in Ventura, Kim served as a Research Attorney for Justice Steven Stone and followed the Justice to the JAMS organization when he retired from the bench in 1999. Her career in ADR has enjoyed a meteoric rise, beginning as a Manager in the company’s Ventura office before becoming the General Manager in New York City. Soon she became Regional Vice-President of the Eastern and Central Regions, and in that position she helped to grow the panel of international commercial arbitrators, while also serving as Associate General Counsel for the company. Her management skills made her a natural for assuming a role as Chief Operating Officer and then President, a position she assumed amidst the COVID-19 pandemic (and all the changes in ADR caused by the quarantine). Kim has seen the expansion of commercial arbitration in California first-hand, and she shares her experiences in an interesting interview.
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California Conversations Episode 2 – Sally Harpole
Charles Dick interviews Sally Harpole. Raised in Pasadena as the daughter of a lawyer, Sally Harpole was blessed with an ear for the many languages she heard spoken around her in school. At UC Berkeley she studied foreign languages, but a watershed moment occurred in 1972 when the United States opened a diplomatic relationship with China. Upon graduation, Sally took the plunge by immersing herself in 3 years of Chinese language study before returning to law school, where she supported herself as a Chinese-English interpreter for business negotiations. It was natural for her to join an international law firm, and she soon found herself establishing a Beijing office to support clients of the firm. What followed was over 3 decades as an American lawyer in Asia, culminating in the development of a commercial arbitration practice. Now back in San Francisco as an arbitrator, Sally Harpole is a key figure in California’s international disputes resolution practice.
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California Conversations Episode 1 – Patrick Byrne
Charles Dick interviews Patrick Byrne. A native of Fresno and the son of a lawyer, Patrick embodies a world-view that is typical of California arbitration practitioners. Educated at UC San Diego and the UC Hastings College of Law, Patrick practiced as a litigator in California before being drawn to study comparative international dispute resolution at Queen Mary University of London. Being the grandson of Irish immigrants to the United States afforded him citizenship in Ireland and an EU passport he has used to launch a career as a commercial arbitration specialist in Madrid. Work in Spain has brought him full circle to the federal courts in California, where he has found himself involved in litigation over ownership of artworks looted in World War II and currently in a Madrid museum. This California Conversation explains how all that was possible for a California lawyer who did not speak Spanish when he arrived in Spain.
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