Salutations

My name is Dave Raynor, and I am a new guest-blogger here at TLB. I want to thank Travis and the rest of the gang for inviting me to participate. I am a 2L at USF School of Law, and have various interests related to international and transnational law. In particular, my interests focus on a couple of areas: the effects of law and trade on development, transnational approaches to dispute resolution, and the intersection of domestic law with global economic concerns, such as those that arise in connection with antitrust and  trade.

I have a considerable amount of  international experience, having been raised primarily in Latin America (Venezuela and Bolivia), and as an adult I have lived and worked in Germany, Columbia and Vietnam. Prior to law school, I was in the business world for eight years. I began my career at a European HR consultancy that advised companies expanding in emerging markets, and later was in corporate trading. This past summer I interned for an international law firm in Vietnam, which was a tremendous experience. I will certainly blog more about Vietnam and the effect that expanded trade is having there. I will be returning to the international firm as a summer associate this year, working in their international and corporate groups.

As I noted, one of my areas of interest is transnational dispute resolution. I am currently doing research on the status of international third-party dispute resolution mechanisms under U.S. law by comparing the hands-off approach taken to third-party dispute resolution mechanisms in commercial contracts with the apparent hostility to third-party interpretation of treaties often exhibited by the courts. I'll be blogging a bit about this topic initially, and would like to invite your comments as I hope to turn this research into a law review comment.

Thanks again for having me aboard!