Careers in International Law An interview with Nicholas C. Howson
by the ILSA Executive Office
zations, and lawyers working in firms both large and small.
C
Professor Nicholas C. Howson of the University of Michigan Law School is an internationally rec- ognized expert in Chinese law and writes and lectures widely on Chinese law topics, focusing on Chinese corporate and securities law devel- opments. He has acted as a consultant to the Ford Foundation, the United Nations Develop- ment Programme (UNDP) and various Chinese government ministries and administrative de- partments.
Prior to attending Columbia Law School, Howson spent two years as a graduate fellow at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, taking courses and writing on late Qing Dynasty-early modern Chinese literature. After law school, he was awarded a Ford Foundation/CLEEC Fellowship to complete research in Qing Dynasty penal law, during which time he was a resident at Beijing University.
In the late 1980s, Howson joined the New York- based international law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rif- kind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, where he was elected partner in the corporate department, and later served as a managing partner of the firm’s China practice based in Beijing. During this time, Howson represented clients in several precedent-setting corporate mergers and acqui- sitions (M&A), investment, project finance and registered offerings transactions. Howson is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and
areers in international law are many: judges, academics, arbiters, activists, government workers, employees of non-governmental and non-profit organi-
a designated foreign arbitrator for the China In- ternational Economic and Trade Arbitration Com- mission (CIETAC), and is a former Chairman of the Asian Affairs Committee of the New York City Bar Association.
In November, Professor Howson took some time to speak with the ILSA Quarterly.
ILSA: Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to speak with us. How did you originally become involved in Chinese corporate law?
Professor Howson: I am one of a generation of students who was first focused on Chinese studies, and only later approached by Harvard Law School professor Jerome (“Jerry”) Cohen. Jerry had decided to leave academia and go into private practice, at which time he engaged with a number of us who already had sufficient Chi- nese language skills and in-country experience. He suggested we retrain as legal professionals at one of the United States’ good law schools, to be hatched as the vanguard of those interact- ing with then newly-reforming China. So, I, along with other specialists in exotic subjects like Tang poetry, Song philosophy, Buddhist art and other seemingly law-unrelated disciplines, was quickly pulled into study of the law. I therefore diverted from the study of 18th and 19th century Chinese literature and went to Columbia Law School un- der Professor R. Randle Edwards and his Center for Chinese Legal Studies. When I finished law school, I had to decide whether to make a run at academic life or enter the practice of law. I ended up going to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, where Jerry Cohen had become
ILSA Quarterly » volume 20 » issue 2 » December 2011 93
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