Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky Joins Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering.

Business Editors

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 23, 2001

We are pleased to announce that Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, formerly the United States Trade Representative, has joined Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering as Senior International Partner, to provide global business, investment, regulatory, and negotiating advice in markets spanning the world.

William J. Perlstein, Chairman of WCP's Management Committee, remarked: "Charlene's stature in the international business and legal communities is unparalleled. She is known around the world as a brilliant negotiator and strategist. Her expertise on world business, regulatory, and trade matters is unmatched, as is her knowledge of key decision makers around the world and the way in which they make decisions. Charlene brings enormous talents and a wealth of experience in the global marketplace. We are all thrilled that she has decided to join us. We would also like to congratulate Charlene on her recent election to the Boards of Directors of American Express Company and The Estee Lauder Companies."

Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky was the chief trade negotiator and principal trade policy maker for the United States from 1996 to 2001.

As the United States Trade Representative and a member of the president's Cabinet, Ambassador Barshefsky was at center stage in the opening of foreign markets and the elimination of regulatory and investment barriers around the world and, as the architect of U.S. trade policy, a central figure for international business.

Best known for negotiating the historic market opening agreement with China on its entry into the World Trade Organization, Ambassador Barshefsky pursued an aggressive agenda to open foreign markets across the globe, negotiating hundreds of complex trade agreements with virtually every major market, from China, Japan and the European Union to the smallest states of Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.

In addition to agreements covering traditional sectors of the economy, Ambassador Barshefsky also developed and negotiated trade rules for the information age, concluding global agreements covering the world's telecommunications markets, global financial services, information technology products, intellectual property rights and cyberspace, which account for well over half of all global commerce.

Ambassador Barshefsky recognized that trade could be a force for peace and stability. In addition to her negotiations with China, she was also the architect of the negotiations to create a hemispheric free trade zone, the Free Trade Area of the Americas. She negotiated historic market opening agreements with Vietnam and Jordan that transcend international economic relations.

She also initiated free trade negotiations with Singapore and Chile, which complemented the broader trade agenda that she shaped, toward ever freer global trade.

The breadth of Ambassador Barshefsky's accomplishments has been widely recognized: Harvard Law School recently honored her with its "Great Negotiator" award and the Harvard Business School has chronicled her deft negotiating skills in a series of case studies to be published by the Business School this fall.

She was the recipient of Yale Law School's Prieskel-Silverman Fellowship for extraordinary public service, and her savvy and skills are detailed at length in a forthcoming book on leadership to be published this fall under the auspices of the Wharton School and the Wharton Center for Leadership and Change.

Ambassador Barshefsky has been extensively profiled in many national publications here and abroad including the New Yorker magazine, the New York Times and New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Sun Times, London's Financial Times, as well as throughout the Asian and Latin American press.

Immediately following government service, Ambassador Barshefsky was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. Prior to her confirmation as the United States Trade Representative, she was Deputy USTR and Acting USTR from 1993 to 1996.

Before entering government service, she was a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Steptoe & Johnson, where she co-chaired the firm's International Practice group. Ambassador Barshefsky is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin (1972) and the Catholic University School of Law (1975).

Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering is an international law firm with offices in Washington, D.C., New York, Baltimore, Northern Virginia, London, Brussels, and Berlin. The firm has about 450 lawyers engaged in a broad practice spanning the full range of corporate matters, regulatory work, complex civil and criminal litigation, cross-border transactions, and international arbitration.