Nashville Business Journal - November 15, 2002
by Judy Sarles
Nashville Business Journal
Murfreesboro attorney David Allen has no clients in Tennessee and does business with companies based as far away as Hong Kong and Australia.
But Allen doesn’t consider it unusual that clients from all over the world seek him out. It’s the free market at work.
“It’s their right to pick who they think is a competent attorney to handle their matter in the most efficient and cost-effective way, whether it’s me or somebody in Chicago or somebody in Australia,” says Allen. “I don’t think you need to be located in the same city as your clients.”
Using e-mail, the Internet and Federal Express, sole practitioners like Allen and others in Nashville are no longer tied down to a particular geographic area. They can do business across the world without logging a mountain of frequent-flier miles.
A graduate of Northwestern University’s School of Law, Allen began his legal career at the National Futures Association in Chicago. He left the association but stayed in the Windy City to join the law firm Chapman and Cutler, where he worked for about three years. Allen moved to Tennessee about 12 years ago to settle in Murfreesboro, where his wife has roots.
Out of his home office, Allen is handling some major business. He represents Chicago-based Denali Partners LP, which manages a $100 million hedge fund that was started in January 2000. Scott Ramsey, president of Denali Partners, says he had worked with Allen while at another money manager and contacted the attorney when Denali was getting off the ground.
On securities offerings like Denali’s, Allen covers the legal requirements set by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, the National Futures Association or the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as individual states’ securities commissions.
For example, Allen recently filed some paperwork with the Ohio Department of Commerce’s Division of Securities in order to perfect an exemption from registration for Denali Partners.
Allen says clients may choose to do business with him because he charges less and provides better service than many large law firms. He doesn’t advertise, so business comes to him through word of mouth.
Other area sole practitioners also are making international moves. Kline Preston IV practices law here and in Russia, where he was an undergraduate student. After developing an interest in the country and in the neighboring Ukraine, Preston got involved in some business operations there about a decade ago. His law work, he says, has been a good complement to those.
In one of his cases, Preston represented Russian Alex Gvozdev, a music group manager who trains young Russian musicians, including Bering Strait, a country band that moved to Nashville and was signed by multiple labels.
“They’ve had a lot of problems with their labels,” says Preston.
The case involved contracts between the producer and management company and the young Bering Strait musicians. Gvozdev, who is in Moscow, was sued in Davidson County by the band, which wanted to get out of its contract.
The court here applied Russian law, which is different than Tennessee law. In the Russian system, a minor can enter into a contract and get involved in the sale of intellectual property rights at age 14. Under Tennessee law, a person has to be 18.
Most of the other international cases Preston has handled didn’t entail litigation, but dealt with contracts and adoptions.
Preston says that, when practicing law internationally, it is important to speak the language of other countries. A fluent speaker and frequent reader of Russian, he says so much of a language’s nuances is lost when speaking through an interpreter, he says.
Preston also handles overseas matters in other cities in this country, including Atlanta and Chicago, and works closely with a lawyer in Tehran, Iran.
Beatrice Chan Hubbard, who is from Hong Kong originally and is a Vanderbilt University graduate, practices law in China. She worked in Beijing for six months in 1996 for Great Wall Foreign Economic, a Chinese government law firm, which was under the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation.
“I learned my trade there,” says Hubbard.
Hubbard’s path to Great Wall began when she was legal counsel at Reemay Inc., the successor to a DuPont business unit. Hubbard facilitated the sale to the Chinese government of DuPont’s technology equipment for which Reemay had no use.
“When I was doing that and handling that, I got interested in doing international law work,” Hubbard says.
She left Reemay to join Baker Donelson Bearman & Caldwell, the fourth largest firm in Nashville. While working there, she applied to China’s Ministry of Justice for a special visa to work at the Chinese law firm.
Hubbard has since handled some joint venture work in China and has assisted a client in establishing a wholly foreign-owned enterprise. The Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation has to approve foreign investments of more than $30 million.
Stephen Rush of Rush Law Group, who has been practicing law for 26 years, enjoys handling international transactions and the occasional overseas travel that accompanies them. Rush is a sole practitioner, but another attorney works with him on an of-counsel basis.
On the international end of his practice, he primarily handles business transactions. In recent years, there has been a good deal of music and entertainment work, general corporate transactions and business loans.
“I’ve managed some litigation from time to time,” says Rush, who has taken on work in almost every part of Western Europe as well as in Kazakhstan and Russia and has traveled to those countries.
“I find a small law firm can do international projects as well as large firms,” says Rush, who will associate the work if he needs additional expertise.
One of the more recent transactions Rush took on was a lending deal in which he represented Citibank. The borrower was in the United Kingdom and the guarantor was an offshore company.
In another transaction, Rush represented Global Music Group, a German publishing company that sold its operations to Chrysalis Group, a London music publishing company.
“In virtually all the international projects I’ve done, I always retain a local lawyer,” says Rush. “It’s very interesting and educational and just fun.”
jsarles@bizjournals.com, 615-248-2222 ext. 114
