Jay Ponazecki, President
Jay is a partner in Morrison & Foerster's Tokyo Business Department and regularly represents American, European and Japanese high-technology companies in a broad range of international business transactions including tender offers, joint ventures and other strategic alliances, and negotiated acquisitions. Jay also assists foreign hedge funds and asset managers with their investments in Japan. She received her B.A. in political science, magna cum laude, from Barnard College and her J.D. from New York University School of Law. Jay is admitted to practice in New York. Jay first came to Japan as a high school exchange student with the American Field Service. She was seconded to Nagashima, Ohno & Tsunematsu in the early 1990s, during which time she and other foreign women lawyers formed the FWLA. She has previously served as FWLA Public Relations Chair, Treasurer and Vice President, and is currently serving her second term on the Board of Governors of The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan.
Jerri Donovan, Vice President
Jerri is Chief Counsel for Wyeth K.K., the Japanese subsidiary of Wyeth, a research-based pharmaceutical company headquartered in Madison, New Jersey and Collegeville, Pennsylvania. She received her undergraduate degree in Japanese history from Princeton University as a member of the last all-male class – back when Japanese was considered an esoteric language. Financially exhausted after a few years of Graduate School in Asian Studies at Columbia University, she worked for the then-Japanese National Railways in New York. She completed a J.D. at Brooklyn Law School while working for the US subsidiary of Nisshin Steel Co., Ltd. Jerri is admitted to practice in New York and Massachusetts.
Julianne Long, Co-Secretary
Julianne is an Australian lawyer from Melbourne with a long history of ties to Japan. She is currently General Counsel, Asia for Thomson Reuters, based in Tokyo, but originally came to Japan on a Monbusho scholarship some time before that. She gained a Master of Laws at Sophia University while also working part-time at what was then Hamada & Matsumoto. She has worked in private practice specialising in IP/IT at two large Australian firms, Phillips Fox and Mallesons Stephen Jaques, but then moved in-house to work as corporate counsel for the Asia-Pacific region for Blockbuster Inc., after a stint as in-house counsel for the Australian Grand Prix Corporation in Melbourne. Julianne is also actively involved in the Japan In-house Counsel Network.
Catherine O'Connell, Co-Secretary
Catherine moved back to Tokyo in January 2008 to join the U.K. law firm Lovells. In February 2008, Catherine was seconded to the Legal Department of Mitsubishi Motors Corporation and now enjoys the best of both worlds of being in house and attached to a law firm. Catherine was educated at University of Canterbury where she received a double degree in Law and Japanese. She qualified as a Barrister & Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand in 1995, and was in private practice with top-10 law firm Anderson Lloyd for 7 years, then departing in late 2002 to take up an In House Counsel position for Olympus Corporation in Tokyo. In 2004, Catherine transferred to west Japan, to take up the position of Senior Legal Counsel for Panasonic Electronic Devices in Osaka and was then transferred to the head office of Panasonic at the start of 2007 where she advised on a myriad of corporate legal issues, risk management and compliance.
Emmie Smith, Co-Treasurer
Emmie is currently working as a foreign attorney at Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu. She received her B.A. in Asian studies from Cornell University and her law degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. She studied abroad in Japan during both college and law school and in 2006 returned to Japan to complete an LL.M. in transnational law from Temple University Japan. She is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia.
Monica De Martin, Membership
Monica De Martin is an Australian qualified lawyer in Queensland and New
South Wales, graduating with Honours from Queensland University of Technology. Monica moved from Sydney to Tokyo in January 2007 and joined the U.K law firm Ashurst soon thereafter. Monica is currently seconded to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries,
Ltd. and is predominantly involved in providing legal advice on the
development of the new Mitsubishi Regional Aircraft. Monica qualified as
a Barrister in Queensland before moving to New South Wales, qualifying as
a solicitor, to join the Royal Australian Navy as a legal officer,
whereupon in 2003, Monica was deployed to the Arabian Gulf for six months
for the purpose of providing legal advice to Australian fleet commanders involved in operations during that time. Following on from her time spent focusing on International and Humanitarian law for the Australian Military, Monica obtained two
Graduate diplomas and spent one year on secondment with the New South
Wales police as a prosecutor. Monica then transferred to the Military
Prosecutions as a Naval Prosecutor for the remainder of her commission as
a full time Military Member. Monica remains an active member of the Royal
Australian Legal Reserve.
Elisabetta Franceschin, Membership
Elisabetta is an italian qualified lawyer. She holds a law degree from the University of Bologna. She worked in Italy as a lawyer until 2006, and, then, in the same year, she moved to Copenhagen where she worked at Kopp Advokatfirma as a foreign lawyer.
She is currently continuing to expand her education at Temple University in Tokyo. In addition, she is also studying Japanese. She has been living in Tokyo for 6 months.
Sakura Hozumi, Communications
Sakura handles the day-to-day communications for the FWLA . She was previously a Communications Adviser and member of the legal team in a European pharmaceutical company where she led the Legal Function Project (applying global best practices to Japan), and was responsible for knowledge management initiatives, contracts and case management, and practice building. She completed her studies in international studies and comparative politics at the University of Denver and University of Paris and received a paralegal certificate from George Mason University. Having practiced corporate communications in London, New York and Tokyo, she continues expanding her postgraduate education and expertise in commercial law and arbitration through the IBA fellowship programme.
Florence Lomaglio, Newsletter Editor
Florence Lomaglio is a Swiss qualified lawyer. Living in Tokyo since January 2008, she is currently conducting consulting mandates for Swiss companies on the Japanese market as a freelancer. In addition, she is studying Japanese. Interested in the humanitarian law, she was selected to participate to the Jean-Pictet competition in 2005 and writes monthly on-line articles for TRIAL (Swiss Association Against Impunity) about the international law of armed conflicts. In 2005, She received a master in law, magna cum laude, from Neuchâtel University, Switzerland. She was admitted to the bar in Switzerland in 2007. During her studies, she worked as a part-time educator in charge of people with mental deficiencies for three years.
Susan Reid, Newsletter Editor
Susan is an Australian qualified lawyer. She is admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and the High Court of Australia. Her formal qualifications are a B.A. (First Class Hons. English Literature) from the University of New South Wales, and a LLB from Sydney University. Prior to moving to Japan in late September 2006, Susan practised as a litigator in Sydney for 12 years. Wanting a break from practice, Susan has now reinvented herself as a Special Lecturer in Law at Meiji University in Tokyo. The subjects Susan teaches all have an Australian law focus. When not teaching, Susan enjoys hiking, travelling, reading and learning Japanese.
Trea Tuck, Newsletter Editor
Trea is an associate at Atsumi & Partners. She is admitted to practice law in Texas and holds an LL.M. in Transnational Law from Temple University and a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, summa cum laude, from the University of Texas at Arlington and a diploma in Nursing Science, with distinction, from Saint Lawrence College, Ontario, Canada. Prior to becoming an attorney, Trea practiced as a registered nurse in Critical Care and Cardiac Angioplasty. She is a member of the Sigma Theta Tau Nursing Honor Society.
Royanne Doi, Career Pursuits
Royanne Doi is Senior Vice President and Senior Regional Counsel for
Asia Pacific for State Street Investment Services, State Street Global
Advisors, and State Street Global Markets APAC (Australia, Hong Kong,
India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, PRC, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand). With
more than 13 years experience in Japan, she designs solutions and
strategies for regional legal issues and opportunities across multiple
business lines (banking, asset management, FX and securities) and
provides recommendation and guidance to senior executives of State
Street APAC financial institutions.
Laurie Lebrun, Career Pursuits
Laurie Lebrun is a Search Consultant in the Tokyo office of Major, Lindsey & Africa. Laurie specializes in placing associates and partners in international law firms in Tokyo, whether it is their first time living in Japan or they are looking to move laterally within the market. In addition, Laurie has been successful in placing lawyers in-house in Tokyo. A New York qualified lawyer, Laurie practiced for more than five years in the New York and Tokyo offices of Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton as a securities, and mergers and acquisitions lawyer. Laurie received her B.A. in international politics from Columbia University, her M.S.F.S. in international business diplomacy from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. Following law school, she was a judicial clerk for one year for Chancellor William T. Allen of the Delaware Court of Chancery.
Sandra Cave, Co-Events Coordinator
Sandra was admitted as a lawyer in NSW, Australia in August 2005 and has worked since 2001 as a Legal Editor for 3 large law firms in Tokyo, prior to which she taught English for two years in Tokyo upon arriving in Japan from her birthplace of Tasmania in 1999. She has a B A (Political Science) and an LL B from the University of Tasmania and is currently studying on-line for an LL M at the Australian National University. She enjoys traveling as much as possible, singing as loudly as possible at karaoke, photography, Zen meditation, writing and enjoying time with friends (karaoke optional!).
Jane Pardinas, Co-Events Corrdinator
Jane is a foreign attorney at Mori Hamada & Matsumoto (MHM). She is
admitted in the Philippines and started her practice in Manila with
SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan. She came to Japan on a 2-year
secondment to Anderson Mori Tomotsune. She joined MHM in 2002. She
specializes in project finance, structured finance and other finance
transactions, Japan REITs and mergers and acquisitions, and has worked
on transactions in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, China and
Japan. To maintain her sanity, she runs, sings, does yoga, cooks and
dabbles in photography.
Laura MacKinnon, Webmaster
Laura is a graduate of the University of Toronto. She has been in Japan for several years, where she works as a corporate trainer. In addition to working as a corporate trainer, she does freelance photography work and website design.
