(Newt Gingrich) – I am very excited to join Dentons, the largest law firm in the world, as a Senior Advisor. Dentons has a simple but exceptionally important mission: to help extend the rule of law across the world. This mission, of course, requires having lawyers everywhere in the world.
We live in a global age–a time in which Facebook connects 1.4 billion users and aspires one day to connect 5 or even 7 billion people. As someone who used to represent the city of Atlanta, home to Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, and CNN, I know that being able to work effectively around the world is as complicated as it is important.
What is fascinating about Dentons is they understand that civilization and commerce require the rule of law everywhere. At the same time, Dentons understands that, in the end, doing business on a global basis must eventually mean doing business locally, in many different places. It involves local decisions by local governments, local courts, and local regulatory bodies. It is this combination of global and local expertise that makes Dentons so fascinating, so appealing, and so successful–with more than 6,500 lawyers in 50 countries, and with offices in more than 125 cities.
In addition to its astonishing scale and depth, Dentons is also the most innovative law firm in the world. It has just announced NextLaw Labs, an effort to transform the practice of law using technology to bring clients together with the best experts, wherever they’re located.
This initiative shows tremendous foresight: the speed and interconnectedness of the modern world requires the legal profession to adapt and innovate to help clients compete — at the core of Dentons’ mission. This central commitment to agility worldwide will be increasingly important to improving the quality of life for everyone on the planet, as more businesses encounter more complexity, more regulatory bodies, and more economic and political challenges internationally.
Finally, I am excited that as an advisor to Dentons, I will have opportunities to bring home what I learn abroad and, in exchange, to export ideas about America–as well as to share analysis of what is happening in the United States. Dentons already has an extraordinary group of people helping provide this analysis, from Global Chairman Joe Andrew (a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee), to COO Elliott Portnoy, to Eric Tanenblatt (who worked in both Bush administrations), to Gordon Giffin (a former ambassador to Canada). And I know from many years of working with my close friends and advisors Randy Evans and Stefan Passantino that they bring tremendous experience and expertise as well.
Henry Kissinger once told me that you can always find people who want to know more about America because we don’t even understand ourselves very well–we are always changing and inventing a new story for ourselves, With this upcoming presidential election, I have no doubt that there will be plenty of new stories to talk about, and that people all over the world will be interested in hearing them.
Dentons represents the belief that we can exchange ideas, that we can work together to develop solutions, that we can invent new ways of doing business, and that we can work both globally and locally–all while helping spread the rule of law, an American ideal, to people across the world. I am excited to be a part of this effort.
Mr. Gingrich is a former Republican Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.
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