Profile: Philip F Zeidman

Franchise

Biography: Franchise

Philip F Zeidman is senior partner in the Washington office of DLA Piper US LLP. He devotes his practice to domestic franchising law and the rapidly growing field of international distribution, licensing and franchising law.

He has given particular attention to the rapidly growing field of international distribution, licensing and franchising. Mr Zeidman is general counsel to the International Franchise Association and counsel to a number of US and foreign companies and trade associations. He served as the first chairman of the American Bar Association's Antitrust Law Section's Committee on Franchising, as chairman of the Franchising Law Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and as editor of the Franchise Legal Digest.

Mr Zeidman has written extensively on the subject of international franchising, distribution, and licensing, including the regular international columns in Franchising World and Franchise Times and the franchising column in Global Competition Review. He is the author of Franchising in the series Aspects of the Market Economy, which has been translated into Russian and also serves as a textbook for courses on entrepreneurism in eastern Europe. Mr Zeidman also served as the general editor of the American Bar Association's Survey of Laws and Regulations Affecting International Franchising (1982; revised edition, 1990); as associate editor of the International Journal of Franchising and Distribution Law and as consulting editor of CCH's Global Franchising Alert. He has served as chairman of the International Bar Association's International Franchising Committee, as vice chairman of its Asia-Pacific forum, as liaison to its Latin American/Caribbean steering group, and as representative on its general professional programme committee. He was elected as a member of the council, the governing body of the International Bar Association's Section on Business Law, and currently serves as president of the International Bar Association Foundation Inc. Mr Zeidman also serves as general counsel to the International Franchise Association and special counsel to the Japan Franchise Association.

Mr Zeidman has engaged in a transactional practice, testified on franchising before governmental bodies, participated in judicial and administrative proceedings, and taught at universities. He has appeared before business and professional groups in numerous countries around the world and before the Commission of the European Union, as well as before numerous US congressional committees. A number of international governmental organisations have retained him to advise them on the subject of franchising as a technique for international development and for the privatisation of state-owned enterprises: by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (Paris), for work in central and eastern Europe; by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Geneva), to assist in the development of its Franchising Guide for Developing Countries; by the International Centre for Public Enterprises (Ljubljana), to help create an international franchising databank for use in its transitional economies; by the International Executive Service Corps, to introduce franchising into Morocco; by Unidroit, a UN-affiliated agency (Rome), to advise on the issue of the regulation of international franchising; and by the US Agency for International Development (for work with the Indian government, to assist black entrepreneurs in post-apartheid South Africa, and to assist the privatisation agencies of the former Soviet Union). He served on the International Chamber of Commerce Working Group on Franchising (Paris).

Mr Zeidman is the editor of Legal Aspects of Selling and Buying (West Group; 3rd edition published in 2004) and Franchising: Regulation of Buying and Selling a Franchise (Bureau of National Affairs). He has written for such publications as The Asian Wall Street Journal and Worldlink and has been interviewed on such television programmes as The Today Show, The McNeil/Lehrer Report, WorldNet, CNN Asian Business Report, and the CNN financial network, CNNfn. He served as a contributing editor for antitrust and trade regulation of The Legal Times and as a member of the advisory board of the Bureau of National Affairs' Antitrust and Trade Regulation Report. For 21 years Mr Zeidman chaired both the annual New York Law Journal 'distribution' seminar and the annual bi-coastal 'franchising' symposium, and he presents the franchising segment of the annual PLI Advanced Antitrust Seminars.

Prior to entering private practice, Mr Zeidman served in several positions with the United States government, including trial lawyer, Federal Trade Commission; general counsel, small business administration; and special assistant to the vice president of the United States.

Mr Zeidman is admitted to practise before the US Supreme Court, and in the District of Columbia, New York, Florida, and Alabama. He graduated with honours from Yale College, where he was named Scholar of the First Rank. He was elected chairman of the class council of his class at Yale, received its first Distinguished Service Award, and was named its representative to the Association of Yale Alumni. He received his law degree from Harvard University and also studied at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. Mr Zeidman has served as a member of the advisory board of the Yale School of Organisation and Management; as a trustee of the Yale-China Association; and as a member of the advisory board of the DeWitt Wallace Center for Communications and Journalism of the Terry Sanford Institute for Public Policy of Duke University. He is a member of the board of directors and of the executive committee of The Appleseed Foundation, and has been appointed to the new position of general counsel.

DLA Piper is one of the largest law firms in the world, with more than 3,400 lawyers in 64 offices in 25 countries. The firm is a national and international leader in franchise and distribution law, with clients ranging from entrepreneurs and start-up companies to the world's largest franchisers and manufacturers.

DLA Piper is positioned to help companies with their legal needs anywhere in the world. We are a full-service legal organisation whose principal practices include commercial contracts; corporate; employment, pensions and benefits; finance and restructuring; franchise and distribution; intellectual property; litigation and arbitration; projects and infrastructure; real estate; regulatory and government affairs; tax; and technology and media.

Our unmatched global presence enables us to meet the ongoing needs of our clients in the world's key economic, technology and governmental centres, including London, New York, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Frankfurt, Moscow, Tokyo, Shanghai, Chicago, Singapore, Brussels, Beijing and Washington, DC.

In the US, DLA Piper has 1,500 lawyers and offices in 23 cities, including top business and technology markets across the country, from Baltimore and Boston to Silicon Valley and San Diego. We are also located in strategic markets such as Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, Raleigh, Sacramento, Seattle and Tampa.

Featured Articles

Articles By This Lawyer