International Practice Group - Recent Successes

Rebekah Bina, a member of the firm's Corporate Department, is a member of the Legal Working Group, chaired by Gordon N. Lederman of the National Counterterrorism Center, in support of the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR, www.pnsr.org). She is currently researching the authorities of government departments to distribute foreign aid and foreign assistance. She will be presenting her preliminary research during a two-day conference this summer entitled "Integrating Instruments of National Power in the New Security Environment," and continue as a member through the completion of the project. The Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) is a non-partisan initiative sponsored by the non-profit Center for the Study of the Presidency (CSP). PNSR is designed to address ways in which our national security system does not allow the United States to effectively provide for its security in the contemporary security environment. The project seeks to improve the U.S. Government's ability to integrate all elements of national power and more effectively respond to the international strategic challenges of the 21st century. Ultimately, PNSR will produce recommendations on changes to the National Security Act of 1947, presidential directives to implement other reforms, and new Congressional committee structures and practices.

Larry Gordon, a member of the Firm’s Land Use and Zoning Practice Group, was invited to the City of Taiyuan in the People’s Republic of China in mid-October where he presented a series of lectures on “Land Planning in a Market Economy.”   The program was presented at the Shanxi Instiute of Planning and attendees included over 200 public officials and planners from throughout the Shanxi Province. 

Taiyuan is the capital of Shanxi Province and is located in north central Mainland China.  The Province is home to approximately 32 million residents in a 60,000 square mile area.   By contrast, Montgomery County, Maryland has a population nearing one million residents within 495 square miles.

Shanxi Province is the center of China’s coal mining and steel manufacturing industries.  It is confronting significant air pollution problems, along with housing and workforce issues associated with large population shifts from agricultural areas to urban centers. 

The program was sponsored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Boston, Massachusetts.   In addition to having practiced land use law in and around Montgomery County for the past 25 years, Mr. Gordon has been a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the George Washington University Law School where he has continuously taught the upper-level course in “Planning, Zoning, and Land Use Law” since 1988.  He is also a guest lecturer at the University of Maryland Smart Growth Institute.