About

Our Mission:

The Washington Foreign Law Society, founded in 1952, promotes knowledge and understanding of international legal matters, comparative legal issues, and foreign law. It is a non-profit, tax-exempt, educational organization located in the District of Columbia.

Our Advantage:

As a center for international activity — diplomatic, financial, commercial and academic – Washington, D.C. is served by a legal community that daily interacts with the laws and legal actors of foreign countries as well as those of the United States. The Society is in a unique position to disseminate information about foreign laws and to promote scholarship on international and comparative law.  Its members have opportunity to interact directly with leading experts in the field.

Our Niche:

The Washington Foreign Law Society serves as a forum for the intersection of legal and non-legal professionals serving in public and private capacities to the many US Government agencies, foreign missions, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and national and global professional firms with a Washington presence.  The Society encourages discussion and opportunity among its members to advance understanding of foreign law as well as its relationship to a host of non-legal areas affecting both public and private sector matters today.

Our History:

Since its founding in 1952 by Harry LeRoy Jones, the Society has been served by a large number of prominent lawyers, jurists, and other legal professionals on its Board of Governors and has attracted an even larger number of distinguished lawyers, jurists, and other legal professionals and public policy makers as sustaining members.

Former Presidents of the WFLS:

2010 Emily Rae
2008-9 Susan Karamanian
2007 Leocadia I. Zak
2006 Charles H. Camp
2005 Hongxia Liu
2004 Kenneth Hansen
2003 Jamal El-Hindi
2002 Joanne Young
2001 Stuart Kerr
2000 Dan Waltz
1999 Barry Robinson
1998 Margaret Roggensack
1997 Courtenay Ellis
1996 David R. Stepp
1995 Laura H. Hills
1994 Julius Kaplan
1993 Bennett A. Caplan
1992 David Palmeter
1991 John G Murphy Jr.
1990 Paul S. Haar
1989 Bruce Zagaris
1988 Ricki Tigert Helfer
1987 Charles Hunnicutt
1986 Eugene Marans
1985 Leo Phillips
1984 Peter Ehrenhaft
1983 Marcia A. Wiss
1982 J. Dapray Muir
1981 Carl F. Paul
1980 Christian Garcia-Godoy
1979 B. Jenks Middleton
1978 Elting Arnold
1977 Harry LeRoy Jones
1976 Cecil Hunt
1975 Michael H. Cardozo, IV
1974 Stephen B. Ives, Jr.
1973 Katherine Drew Hallgarten
1972 Harry H. Almond, Jr.
1971 Sigmund Timberg
1970 Leonard V. B. Sutton
1969 Stephen A. Silard
1968 Walter Slowinski
1967 L. Ronald Scheman
1966 Allyn C. Donaldson
1965 Whitney Gilliland
1964 Edward D. Re
1961-63 Ernest Schein
1959-62 Charles R. Norberg
1957-59 Emory C. Smith
1956-57 W. Lawrence Keitt
1955-56 Smith N. Crowe, Jr.
1954-55 Eugene M. Caffey
1952-54 Newell Ellison