Our Team
Paris
London
Madrid
Middle East
VistaLaw International is a global network of law firms, individual attorneys and consultants. The people on our team are members of the bars indicated in the profiles below.
Robert Walton
Principal and Co-Founder
Washington, D.C.
Rob has legal expertise with regard to a variety of transactional, intellectual property and compliance matters. He was a Managing Director and Associate General Counsel at BearingPoint, where he led a team of senior attorneys in the US, Europe and Latin America supporting the Commercial Services group. He also was a Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Cable & Wireless, where he headed legal support for sales units in the US and UK, developed global standard contract forms, and managed US litigation. His other projects have included conducting Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and business ethics training for a US client’s subsidiaries throughout Asia and working on corporate governance matters for a Middle East company. Before moving in-house, Rob worked in private practice at the Washington, D.C. law firms of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering and Cole, Raywid & Braverman. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Boston University School of Law and spent a year at the University of Durham, England, as a Rotary Foundation Scholar. Rob is a member of the District of Columbia and California bars.
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Michael Whitener
Principal and Co-Founder
Washington, D.C.
Michael’s legal career has focused primarily on international trade and corporate transactions, with a particular emphasis on assisting software and other high-technology clients develop their global businesses. He was Associate General Counsel – International at BearingPoint, supervising a team of in-house lawyers and outside counsel in the Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East. His responsibilities included negotiating technology-related commercial agreements as well as heading BearingPoint's global IP protection/licensing program. Previously, Michael was based in Singapore as Managing Director and General Counsel of WorldSpace Asia, a subsidiary of a US-based global satellite communications company. Michael was in private practice at the law firms of
Sidley Austin (New York and Washington, D.C.) and Hogan & Hartson (Washington, D.C.). Michael also spent two years with the US Department of Commerce as a trade adviser, and was a Fulbright Fellow in Tokyo, Japan.
Michael is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia School of Law. Michael is a member of the bars of New York, the District of Columbia, and Virginia.
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John J. Smith
Principal
Washington, D.C.
John has extensive experience in telecommunications, e-commerce and information technology law, regulation and policy, as well as general business law, complex commercial transactions, and corporate governance. He has served in various senior management positions, including in-house counsel and strategic advisor to a major computer network company and as General Counsel and Secretary to subsidiaries of Oracle and General Electric. In these roles, he has dealt with a range of commercial, transactional and domestic and international regulatory compliance matters, including large-scale procurements, software development and licensing, network management and outsourcing arrangements, and intellectual property. John is a graduate of Columbia University and the George Washington University School of Law. He is a member of the Bars of Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and the District of Columbia.
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Keith Kuder
Washington, D.C.
Keith joined VistaLaw in January 2010 after three years as the General Counsel – North America of the North Carolina-based marketing and telecommunications company ACN, Inc. Keith has held senior legal positions at Cable & Wireless, MCI and BearingPoint. Through his various roles, Keith has developed specific expertise in the areas of telecommunications, purchase and sale of technology and telecommunications services, consumer protection, e-commerce, litigation and legal department management. In private practice, Keith first worked as a litigator with Seattle's Lane Powell Spears Lubersky and later worked at D.C.’s Wiley Rein & Fielding. A member of the D.C. bar, Keith received his bachelor's and law degrees from the University of Virginia.
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Veronica Pastor
Washington, D.C.
Veronica joined VistaLaw in January 2010 after six years as Assistant General Counsel and Director, Business Development at Intelsat. She has ten years' experience drafting and negotiating sales and marketing contracts and joint venture agreements. Before joining Intelsat, Veronica was the Washington liaison for Global Crossing, having previously worked in London as a senior lawyer for FLAG Telecom and Cable & Wireless. In private practice, she undertook a number of regulatory reform projects in Panama, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) while an Associate at Wilkinson Barker Knauer & Quinn and Squire Sanders & Dempsey. Veronica has co-authored two books on international telecommunications regulation and written several articles on international topics. She is fluent in Spanish, French and Italian and able to conduct negotiations and draft documents in those languages. A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, Veronica is a member of the bars of New York and England and Wales.
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Kristine Karsten
Principal
Paris
Kristine is qualified to practice both in New York and in France. After the Arthur Andersen group acquired the law firm of which she was a partner in 1991, she became the head, successively, of the intellectual and industrial property law group, the real estate group and the banking and finance group within the 600 + lawyer Andersen Legal. Kristine later headed the banking and finance department and also co-chaired the real estate department of the UK law firm Eversheds. In 2006, she moved to Affina Legal, where she advised a number of international corporate groups, often in the context of complex, cross-border transactions. Kristine teaches business law in the accredited English-language MBA program offered by the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM) and sits as a member of the Institute of World Business Law of the International Chamber of Commerce.
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Nicholas Bell
London
Nicholas has worked primarily in the telecommunications and technology sectors. He spent fifteen years with Cable & Wireless, where he handled a wide range of commercial transactions supporting the UK business. He gained international experience working on the wholesale side of the business and managed a number of complex disputes with customers. More recently he has worked as a commercial consultant at Misys plc, concluding major agreements for the licensing and support of software both in the UK and internationally. Having served in legal and commercial roles, Nicholas has considerable experience in managing business risks. He is a graduate of Oxford University.
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Amr El-Bayoumi
London
Amr, based in London, served for more than seven years as Vice President, Legal Affairs of Orascom Telecom Holding in Cairo and Paris. In that position, he was responsible for corporate transactions, regulatory matters and all other legal affairs of the largest GSM telecommunications operator in the Middle East and Africa. Amr’s law firm experience includes positions at Weil Gotshal & Manges in New York, Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison in Palo Alto, and Baker & McKenzie in Chicago. He also served as General Counsel for Iridium Middle East in Dubai, UAE. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Georgetown University Law Center. He also has a certificate in international business from the University of California, Los Angeles. Amr is a member of the New York, Illinois, and California bars.
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Marta Pérez Dorao
Madrid
Marta is business and IT lawyer with broad experience in M&A and intellectual property. She served for ten years as General Counsel and Secretary to the Board of Directors of Meta4 Group, which operates high growth businesses in the areas of social Internet services, permission email media, and electronic retailing. Marta was responsible for corporate and operational legal issues globally and managed the internal legal team, as well as external law firms in all of the countries in which the company operated. Recently she served as manager of corporate legal services of Grupo Softland, an ERP software company in Spain and Latin America. She graduated in the Granada University and has a postgraduate degree in computer law and legal information systems. She attended the General Management Program (PDG) at IESE Business School in 2005.
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Bertrand Alexis
Principal and Co-Founder
Doha
Bertrand, based in Doha, has experience in a broad range of commercial, telecom, e-commerce and intellectual property matters.
He was previously Vice President & Associate General Counsel Europe for Cable & Wireless, where he was responsible for managing a pan-European team handling all legal aspects of the company’s European telecommunications and Internet services.
He has also served as senior international counsel to Nortel and Alcatel, responsible for joint ventures, strategic alliances and technology transfers in Europe, US, Middle East, Africa, India and China.
A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Bertrand is a member of the New York bar.
Bertrand is currently Senior Director, M&A at Qtel International and has suspended his active role at VistaLaw for the duration of his posting at Qtel.
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Michael Hancock
Principal and Co-Founder
Doha
Michael is a corporate lawyer with extensive experience in new technologies (particularly in telecommunications), infrastructure projects and dispute resolution. He held regional counsel positions with the Schlumberger group in Europe and Asia and negotiated several major joint ventures. He later joined Alcatel, where he became the general counsel of Alcatel CIT, and was responsible for a number of mobile ventures and financings, as well as other telecommunication transactions. He joined White & Case, before becoming a partner at Salans in Paris, where he advised clients on a wide range of international M&A, infrastructure and outsourcing transactions. Michael is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Hastings College of Law, as well as the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD). Michael is a member of the California Bar and has been admitted to the Paris Bar.
One of VistaLaw’s founders, Michael is current General Counsel of Qtel International in Doha, Qatar. He remains an advisor to VistaLaw but has suspended his active role with the firm for the duration of his posting at Qtel.
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Blake Redding
Principal and Co-Founder
Abu Dhabi
An avocat admitted to the Paris bar, Blake has handled a wide variety of international legal matters ranging from mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and financings, and global corporate ethics and compliance programs. He has practiced law for more than 35 years, 24 of which were outside his native United States. Previous roles include General Counsel for Michelin, Deputy General Counsel for Schlumberger, and partner in a major French law firm. He also served as worldwide director of Quality and Risk Management for the EY Law network of over 2000 lawyers in 35 countries. He has also been a partner in a boutique law firm in Paris, specializing in insurance and risk management. He is a graduate of Rice University and Harvard Law School.
After co-founding and working with VistaLaw for two years, Blake recently joined Dolphin Energy Limited of Abu Dhabi as its General Counsel. He continues to serve as an advisor to VistaLaw but has suspended his active role with the firm for the duration of his posting at Dolphin.
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