How to Select an International Law Attorney: A Step-by-Step Guide

“International law” covers matters as different as a cross-border sales contract, an arbitration against a foreign company, a lawsuit that needs evidence from another country, and a shipment that may touch sanctions rules. Immigration and international family matters call for different specialists altogether. For a business matter, the selection turns on three things: which countries’ lawyers your matter will need, how the work among them will be coordinated and billed, and whether a candidate already knows the procedures that cross borders, such as enforcing an award, serving a party abroad, and screening a counterparty.

Step 1: Draw the Map of Your Matter

Before contacting anyone, put your matter on one page. Three columns are enough:

What	Where	Why it matters for the hire
The parties and their owners	each country of incorporation, residence, and ownership	decides whose law may apply, and whether a counterparty could be state-owned or sanctioned
The assets	where each side's money, property, and receivables are believed to be	decides where a judgment or award would have to be enforced
The contract and performance	governing-law clause, dispute clause, where goods or services are delivered	decides which forum hears a dispute and which procedures follow

Then write one sentence about what you need decided: whether to sign, how to get paid, how to stop a breach, or how to defend a claim.

The map does two jobs. It lets you see which countries a candidate must cover, directly or through others, and it gives every candidate the same facts, so their answers can be compared.

A worked map

Consider a U.S. equipment maker that sold machinery to a buyer incorporated in Germany. The buyer’s parent company is in Brazil, where its assets sit. The contract says disputes go to arbitration, and the buyer has stopped paying after delivery.

On one page, that matter already names three countries and two procedures: an arbitration somewhere, and enforcement where the assets are. The equipment maker does not need “an international lawyer.” It needs someone who has run arbitrations under clauses like this one and who can say, before anything is filed, how an award would be enforced in Brazil and who would do that work there. A candidate can be tested against that kind of map at every stage of the matter.

Step 2: Ask Who Will Practice Which Country’s Law

A U.S. attorney is licensed to practice the law of the U.S. jurisdiction where he or she is admitted. Advice on another country’s law, or an appearance in its courts, may require a lawyer licensed in that country, and some countries also regulate whether foreign lawyers may advise within their borders. So the first question to put to a candidate is a division of labor, country by country: for each country on your map, will the advice come from the candidate, from a colleague in the firm’s office there, or from local counsel the candidate would bring in?

Listen for two things in the answer. First, whether the candidate has checked the rules that apply to his or her own work in the other country, rather than assuming them. Second, whether the local lawyers are people the candidate has worked with before. An established relationship means the candidate can describe how that lawyer works; a search for the first time means your matter is also an introduction.

It is also worth asking what the firm’s “international” practice actually consists of. A group can be centered on one kind of work, such as trade compliance, immigration, or arbitration, while describing itself broadly. Ask what the group’s recent matters were, which of them resembled yours, and what the candidate’s role was in each.

Step 3: Settle How Local Counsel Will Be Engaged, Supervised, and Paid

Coordination is where cross-border matters lose time and money, and the arrangements are best fixed before work begins.

Engagement. Will local counsel be engaged by you directly or by the candidate’s firm? The answer determines who is responsible to whom, who instructs the local lawyer, and whose engagement terms apply.

Review. Will the candidate review local counsel’s work before it reaches you? If yes, you are paying for coordination and quality control. If not, you may receive two sets of advice and have to reconcile them yourself.

Billing. Who receives and pays local counsel’s invoices, and in what currency? Exchange rates and payment channels affect the real cost, and a matter billed in three currencies is hard to compare across candidates unless someone converts it.

Estimate. Ask for a cost estimate broken down by country and by stage. A breakdown lets you see where the money is expected to go, and it is the only way to compare two proposals that divide the work differently.

Step 4: In an Arbitration, Plan Enforcement Before You Start

An arbitration award is only as useful as your ability to enforce it where the other side has assets. That is why the asset column of your map matters more here than anywhere else.

Whether the Convention applies

In the United States, the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards is enforced in U.S. courts under chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act (9 U.S.C. § 201). Whether your agreement falls under the Convention is itself a question, and the statutory wording matters. An agreement or award “arising out of a legal relationship, whether contractual or not, which is considered as commercial” falls under the Convention, but one arising out of a relationship “entirely between citizens of the United States” does not, “unless that relationship involves property located abroad, envisages performance or enforcement abroad, or has some other reasonable relation with one or more foreign states.” For this purpose, “a corporation is a citizen of the United States if it is incorporated or has its principal place of business in the United States” (9 U.S.C. § 202).

That last definition can surprise people. A foreign-owned company incorporated in Delaware is a U.S. citizen under the test, so a dispute between it and another U.S. company may fall outside the Convention unless the relationship has one of the foreign elements the statute lists. If both parties on your map are U.S. companies, ask the candidate whether the deal’s foreign elements bring it within the Convention, and what changes if they do not.

The three-year clock

Once a Convention award is made, a party may apply to a U.S. court “within three years after an arbitral award falling under the Convention is made” for an order confirming it, and “the court shall confirm the award unless it finds one of the grounds for refusal or deferral of recognition or enforcement of the award specified in the said Convention” (9 U.S.C. § 207). The triggering event is the making of the award, not the moment you decide to collect.

What to ask

For the equipment maker with the unpaid German buyer, the right conversation is about Brazil before it is about the arbitration. Ask the candidate where the award would need to be enforced, whether that country is a party to the Convention, who would handle enforcement there, and what that stage would cost. If you are still negotiating the contract, ask the candidate which seat, rules, and institution he or she would recommend for the arbitration clause, and why; the reasoning should connect the clause to the place you may later need to enforce. If enforcement comes up only after a description of how the arbitration would be won, the plan covers the middle of the matter and not its end, so ask about Brazil first.

Step 5: In a Lawsuit, Ask How the Case Crosses the Border

Serving a party abroad

A U.S. lawsuit against someone in another country must be served by a method the rules allow. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(f) sets an order. First come internationally agreed means of service, “such as those authorized by the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents.” If there is none, the rule lists other methods, including service as the foreign country’s law prescribes, as a foreign authority directs in response to a letter rogatory or letter of request, or, unless the foreign country’s law prohibits it, personal delivery or mail requiring a signed receipt. The court may also order other means “not prohibited by international agreement” (Fed. R. Civ. P. 4).

The selection question is concrete: for the country where the defendant is, which route would the candidate use, how long would it take, and what would he or she do if the route stalled? Experience serving parties in that country shows up as named steps; if the steps are not known yet, ask how much time learning them would add.

Gathering evidence in the United States for a foreign case

The traffic can run the other way. If you are a party to a proceeding abroad, a U.S. district court may order a person who “resides or is found” in its district to give testimony or produce documents “for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal,” either at the request of that tribunal “or upon the application of any interested person.” The statute reaches proceedings “including criminal investigations conducted before formal accusation,” and the court may direct that the evidence be taken under the foreign tribunal’s own procedures, in whole or in part (28 U.S.C. § 1782).

That tool can change what evidence is available to you abroad, so ask whether a § 1782 application would help in your proceeding, and whether the candidate has filed one and in what role. If the tool is unfamiliar to a candidate, ask who in the firm would handle it, since it can matter in any foreign dispute with witnesses or documents in the United States.

A counterparty owned by a foreign government

If anyone on your map might be owned by a foreign state, immunity becomes a threshold issue. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, an “agency or instrumentality of a foreign state” includes a separate legal person, a majority of whose shares or other ownership interest is owned by a foreign state or a political subdivision of it, subject to the statute’s other conditions (28 U.S.C. § 1603). A foreign state is not immune in listed cases, including where it “has waived its immunity either explicitly or by implication,” or where the action is based on certain commercial activity, such as “a commercial activity carried on in the United States by the foreign state” (28 U.S.C. § 1605).

The practical value of a candidate here comes early. When the contract is still being negotiated, an express waiver can still be requested. Ask whether the candidate would screen the ownership of the counterparty for this issue at the drafting stage, and what clause he or she would propose if it applied.

Proving foreign law in a U.S. court

If a U.S. court must apply another country’s law, the procedure is specific. A party who intends to raise an issue about foreign law “must give notice by a pleading or other writing,” the court “may consider any relevant material or source, including testimony,” and its determination “must be treated as a ruling on a question of law” (Fed. R. Civ. P. 44.1). Because the court may look at any relevant source, the way foreign law is presented is a strategic choice, not a formality. Ask the candidate how he or she would present the foreign law that governs part of your case, whether a foreign-law expert would be used, and what that would add to the budget.

Step 6: Plan for Documents That Must Work Abroad

Contracts, corporate records, and powers of attorney may need certification before a foreign authority will accept them, and a missing certificate can delay a closing or a filing. The Hague Conference on Private International Law explains that the 1961 Apostille Convention replaces “the often long and costly legalisation process with the issuance of a single Apostille certificate by a Competent Authority in the place where the document originates.” It reports that the Convention “has 130 Contracting Parties,” and that “an e-Apostille is just as valid as a paper Apostille and must be accepted by all Contracting Parties to the Apostille Convention” (HCCH, Apostille Section).

For each country on your map, the question is whether it is a party to the Convention and, if not, what process applies instead. Ask the candidate which of your documents will need an apostille or other certification, which of your countries accept the apostille, who will obtain the certificates, and how long the process will add to the timeline. If translations are also needed, ask who prepares them and whether they must be certified.

Step 7: Screen Counterparties Before Money Moves

A cross-border transaction can involve parties subject to U.S. sanctions. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control maintains a “Sanctions List Service,” which includes the “Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) List,” and offers a “Sanctions List Search” tool (OFAC, Sanctions List Service).

A search of a published list answers one narrow question: whether a name appeared on that list on the day of the search. Whether a transaction is permitted is a different question, which can depend on the sanctions program, the counterparty’s owners, and the facts. So ask the candidate who will screen the counterparties, their owners, and the banks in the payment chain; when screening will be repeated, for example before each payment; and what he or she would do if a possible match appeared. Screening built into the transaction schedule protects the deal. Screening left to you leaves the step unassigned, which is worth settling in the engagement letter.

Step 8: Confirm the Candidate’s Qualifications

A U.S. attorney’s license is confirmed through the bar directory of the state where he or she is admitted. The listing confirms the license and its status; it says nothing about cross-border experience.

If a candidate is licensed abroad, ask in which country and how you can confirm the qualification with that country’s bar or regulator, then do it. For local counsel the candidate proposes, ask for the same information.

A firm’s website shows which countries and which kinds of cross-border work it describes. Lay that next to your map. The overlap tells you whether the firm’s description fits your matter; it does not tell you which lawyers would handle it or where they are licensed, which only the candidate’s country-by-country division of labor tells you.

Step 9: Read the Engagement Country by Country

Ask how each candidate would price the work: hourly, a fixed fee for a defined task, or a combination. Then compare the proposals on what each covers:

Item	Question
Countries	Which countries' work is included, and which is billed separately by local counsel?
Currency	In which currency are you billed, and who bears exchange-rate changes?
Translation and certification	Are translations and apostilles inside the fee or outside it?
Travel	Is travel billed, and on what terms?
Enforcement	If you win, is enforcement part of this engagement or a new one?

Ask for the scope in writing before work begins. Two proposals with the same hourly rate can differ widely once local counsel, translation, and enforcement are counted.

Step 10: Decide

Bring the same one-page map to every candidate, and after the meetings compare them on what the map asked:

Coverage. For each country, who would advise on its law, and has the candidate worked with that lawyer before?
Coordination. Who engages, supervises, and pays local counsel, and in what currency?
Procedure. For your matter’s crossing points, such as enforcement where the assets are, service on the defendant, evidence, documents, and screening, did the candidate describe a route or promise to research one?
Scope. What does the engagement cover, and what would be a new engagement?

If two candidates propose different local counsel or different enforcement plans, put both on the map: mark the country where the assets are, and ask each to explain the choice for that country. A plan that starts from the map’s asset column, rather than from a firm’s office locations, is one you can check against your own facts.

Legal disclaimer: This guide provides general information about selecting counsel for international business matters. It is not legal advice. Rules on foreign lawyers, service, and enforcement vary by country; speak with qualified counsel in each jurisdiction involved.