French-Speaking Businesses
The firm’s French Development Group can assist your company with legal matters pertaining to France and other French-speaking countries.
French Connection
In the Fall of 2000, our International Practice Group polled every member of our firm, including the secretaries and paralegals in addition to the attorneys, to discover what foreign language backgrounds and interests Graydon Head & Ritchey possessed as a whole. Through that process, we learned that 32 of our co-workers were proficient in eight languages, with the broadest level of competence in French, Spanish, and German. As a result, we formed the French Development Group, which is dedicated to providing corporate entities and individuals with a center of legal proficiency regarding French-related matters.
The French Development Group focuses on companies doing business in French-speaking countries as well as French-speaking individuals and companies with interests in doing business in the region. Our firm recently paid the tuition for any members of the French Development Group who wished to receive French language lessons in our offices from a local professor so that more than several attorneys are able to communicate with Ohio clients in French.
Our lawyers are qualified to handle French-related matters. Holding leadership positions with both the Cincinnati-Nancy (France) Sister City Association and the International Visitor’s Council of Greater Cincinnati, the Firm has positioned itself as a principal supporter of cooperative business relations between U.S. and French-speaking nations. The firm is also a member of the French-American Trade Council of Greater Cincinnati.
International Experience
Our firm’s International Practice Group offers cross-disciplinary depth. It includes more than a dozen lawyers with international experience in diverse fields, including international transactions, dispute resolution, real estate, intellectual property, employment, litigation, and immigration.
As a member of the International Business Law Consortium, GH&R attorneys interact with a group of 60 independent law firms in 40 countries. This allows us to find reliable local counsel around the world to assist us, when necessary, in better serving our clients’ needs.
Reaching Global Objectives
The GH&R French Development Group’s goal is to develop, support and promote clients with French interests. Our clients include local and regional companies doing business in French-speaking countries, as well as French-speaking individuals and francophone companies with interests in Ohio and Kentucky.
Specifically, we can help your company reach global objectives including:
- Arranging joint ventures
- Avoiding trade restrictions and navigating tariffs
- Coordinating economic development incentives for foreign companies in the tri-state area
- Facilitating import/export issues
- Guiding business immigration
- Managing international litigation and dispute resolution
- Negotiating oversees acquisitions
- Overseeing local acquisitions, development, leasing & expansion
- Qualifying to do business in French-speaking nations
- Signing foreign agents and distributors
- Troubleshooting and legal compliance in a foreign country