Episode 64 – Simon Igelman (Technology in Law & International Trade)

This podcast audio has been transcribed by an automatic transcriber.

Fred Rocafort  0:07 

Global law and global business go hand in hand, but never seem to keep pace with each other. The importance on the global stage of developing and developed nations waxes and wanes, while consumption and interconnectedness steadily increase all the while laws and regulations change incessantly requiring businesses to stay nimble. But how do we make sense of it all? Welcome to Global Law and Business hosted by Harris Sliwoski International Business attorneys. I’m Fred Rocafort

 

Jonathan Bench  0:37 

And I’m Jonathan Bench. Every week, we take a targeted look at legal and economic developments in locales around the world as we try to decipher global trends in law and business with the help of international experts. We cover continents, countries, regimes, governance, finance, legal developments, and whatever is trending on Twitter. We cover the important the seemingly unimportant, the relatively simple and the complex.

 

Fred Rocafort  1:02 

We hope you enjoy today’s podcast. Please connect with us on social media to comment and suggest future topics and guests.

 

Jonathan Bench  1:22 

Simon Igelman is a recent graduate of Osgoode Hall Law School and was called to the Ontario Canada bar in 2021. He is currently an associate at Garfinkel Biederman in Toronto, Canada, and practices in the areas of corporate and securities law. Simon is also the founder of tradelawreport.com, a website that uses AI technology to provide real time updates and analysis in the areas of international trade law and national security law. Simon lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons, Simon, welcome to Harris Sliwoski’s Global Law and Business.

 

Simon Igelman  1:52 

Yeah, thank you very much for having me. I’m really excited.

 

Fred Rocafort  1:55 

We’re excited as well, Simon and to get things rolling, I was hoping I could ask you to explain what the process is for a Canadian lawyer to just start practicing here in the United States. It’s relatively straightforward. We finish up law school, take the bar and hopefully get out get a job. But as I understand that in Canada, you have what’s known as articling. And I have to admit, the first time a Canadian friend of mine mentioned this, I was baffled, you know, I thought, you know, sounds like writing articles, you know, but anyway, eventually, eventually, I came to understand what it’s all about, but for the benefit of our certainly of our American listeners and others out there, what exactly is articling? And just more broadly, how do you go from being a law student to being a fully minted lawyer in Canada?

 

Simon Igelman  2:54 

That’s a great question. Thank you, Fred. So basically, what we have in Canada is falling law school, you write the bars, let’s say law school finishes in the spring, and the first bar sitting is in June. So you write the bar, it’s broken up into two components. There’s the barrister exam and the solicitor exam. The barrister exam deals with all aspects of you know, litigation related matters, civil procedure, Criminal Procedure, Family Law, and ethics. You know, you have professional conduct and as well then you have the solicitor exam, which deals with business related matters, such as corporate law, tax law, estate administration, and real estate conveyancing. So you have those two exams, they’re taken two weeks apart. And then for your first job, you complete what is known as your articles or articles of clerkship, according to the Law Society of Ontario. So the way it works is each province in Canada has their own regulatory body, and they dictate the licensing process. So in Ontario, we have the Law Society of Ontario, formerly known as the Law Society of Upper Canada. To become licensed in Ontario, you have to finish law school, right the bar exams and pass and you have to complete 10 months of articling of articles of clerkship. And as an articling student, you work under an articling principle, which is meant to be your mentor lawyer, your you know, the person who introduces you to practice you have basically most of the responsibilities of a junior associate. But there are certain things you cannot do. You can’t we can’t really provide legal advice. You can’t like notarize documents, without special permission. You can’t argue full hearings in court. You can you can do certain motions as articling student but you can’t really do you can’t argue for hearings in court at the end of the process. At the end of the 10 months, actually, this past year was shortened to eight months because of the pandemic and uncertainty that had taken place. Right. What about when I was graduating, so the settings for the bar exam got delayed, so they shortened it to eight months. But at the end of your articling period, your articling principal, your mentor lawyer signs off on your Articles of clerkship and then you’re a fully licensed lawyer. Thank you Start your first year as a fully fledged war.

 

Jonathan Bench  5:03 

And so is it common for you to be hired by the law firm where you did your articling? Or is it common to go from your articling law firm to a different law firm?

 

Simon Igelman  5:15 

So, generally speaking, it’s very common for articling students to work their second summer law school that articling year and you know, their first year of practice in the same firm that actually was not my trajectory. I article that a smaller firm mostly did a construction litigation. And then I went on to where I am now. Garfinkel Biederman, it’s fairly common for there to be some movement after articling. But a lot of the times it’s very common for the students who article at a firm to stick around at least as a junior associate.

 

Jonathan Bench  5:47 

Interesting. So now at Garfinkel Biederman, your work on corporate and securities matters. How much of your work involves an international component? Now you and Fred and I have talked in the past about this as we were talking about the podcast, but what are you doing the international space? Are there any specific industries or markets or regions that you follow closely either because of work or just because of your general interest in the world.

 

Simon Igelman  6:10 

So I work mostly on corporate securities matters in the Garfinkel Biederman. We mostly deal with small to mid cap companies. You know, we do mergers and acquisitions, we do reverse takeover transactions, we facilitate also going public transactions IPOs. With respect to the international component, actually, most of our clients are based in Canada, but there are a number of our clients actually a fair amount of our clients. Our international clients are either listed in Canada or the US stock exchanges like the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canadian Securities Exchange and require Canadian counsel, especially with respect to cannabis corporations. Back in, you know, a few years ago, really the place to go public with cannabis companies was in Canada, and a lot of companies who have operations in other countries such as Europe and the US listed their securities in Canada. So we act for a lot of those companies with respect to you know, industry that I follow by virtue of my work in Garfinkel Biederman, we do work a lot in the cannabis space with respect to cannabis companies. I do follow that industry quite closely. I’m following the cryptocurrency boom, and DEP. You know, but I am following that quite closely. And by virtue of my interest in international trade and International Business Law, I do follow the automotive industry. I’m actually a big car guy and I do follow the automotive industry. I’m actually really interested in electric vehicles. And I’m following that subsection of the automotive industry closely.

 

Jonathan Bench  7:39 

Yeah, it is interesting that you mentioned that cannabis companies, our firm, of course, has a big cannabis practice. And I’ve often worked opposite Canadian Council on matters that deal with US law where we’ll have a publicly listed Canadian company that has assets in the United States. And so then I’ve been regulatory counsel to help with some of those transactions. So maybe we’ll end up working on something in the future.

 

Simon Igelman  8:02 

Yeah, it’s interesting, actually, when you’re working opposite us counsel, a lot of times you get by osmosis get to learn a lot about us securities law, which you see, you see the differences, you know, you see where, where the details kind of diverge. The overarching scheme is somewhat similar. But there you see where the small details diverge. And it’s interesting, you learned a lot just conducting deals internationally.

 

Fred Rocafort  8:24 

Simon, speaking of learning, we’d like to talk about your trade blog, obviously, that there’s a connection there because it’s a wonderful resource for people who want to learn about the issues that you cover. So tell us a bit about what those issues are. And perhaps you can also tell us about what inspired you to start the blog obviously, at our firm, we have a special place in our heart for fellow bloggers, since we are pretty active in that space, we have both the China law blog, which is well known in that field. And we have the canon law blog, which is just as well known and data circle. And we also have our general Harris Sliwoski blog, which is a sort of catch all for when we want to write about other things. So anyway, we’re certainly part of the blogging community. And in a way the work we do at the podcast is an extension or an advancement of that overall process. So with that, I’d love to hear more about your blog. And of course, be sure to tell our listeners how they can find it.

 

Simon Igelman  9:33 

Thank you. So my website, tradelawreport.com, it’s more of a news source than a blog per se. It does have a blog component. I have one blog post up so far and I have a bunch more in the pipeline. I just want to perfect those that will be up soon. And what will my websites what it does is it uses artificial intelligence to grab the latest headlines and news in international Trade law, International Business Law, international commerce and it curates it into one feed, actually two separate feeds because we have one feed for the news headlines on the one hand, and another feed for the Twitter updates where it gathers the latest news from Twitter in real time, I do have a blog component of the website. So with respect to the news component of the website, I really feel like a lot of cases, I found that with respect to the areas of international trade law, International Business Law, and there’s a lot of newsletters out there. And I felt like they didn’t come out, you know, often enough, they’re periodical and even the ones that did come out enough, often they were a little bit sparse. What inspired me that at the start, this was seeing that there was really no central source where a lawyer can come to and find all the information they need on these topics. And one source, which really kept up to date, and which really is always refreshing is always being kept current. So what inspired me to start this website and the blog component attached to it was upon graduating law school, the whole life, I always had an interest for international affairs for international business, for trade, for economics for really for learning how nations and how people businesses interact with one another globally through commerce, and I wanted to synthesize my legal education with my interest in global trade and international relations. So I began searching if there’s any resource that really was uncompressing, and had information about this. And what I found was there was you know, there was newsletters that they came out with, they were a little bit sparse, and they came out, you know, once in a while, and they did have good analysis, but it wasn’t current enough. And you’d often read about things a few months after they happen. I had a background in technology. Before law school, I’d worked in a startup firm technology firm that we work with AI and we developed a system whereby this, this AI system would gather the news from Twitter specifically, but all over the internet in real time, we used it for sports updates, which is very successful, we used it for natural disaster updates, I was involved in, you know, the quality control aspect, I made sure this machine ran without a hitch. So I became fairly intimate with it. So once I graduated law school, I had the idea to apply what I had been involved with prior to law school and apply that to my interest towards international trade law and international business law. And so far, the reception has been great. And I’m really excited about it. And I’m really excited to really expand the blog component. Like I mentioned earlier, I have one blog post up and I have more coming, you know, generally blog about whatever I find interesting, you know, could be principles of international trade laws I could be writing about the development in the law development is just making current events, really whatever piques my interest at that time,

 

Jonathan Bench  12:49 

From one blogger to another, getting your first few blog posts out the door is huge, right? I mean, once then once you’ve done a few it’s, I want to say it gets easier, but it gets more familiar, right? And I certainly appreciate you, you’re saying you’ve got more in the works, because Fred and I are constantly talking to each other and saying, hey, this would make a great blog post. We said, yeah, if we had another 20 hours in each day, we would we would be blogging a lot more. But we enjoy it right? I mean, it is fun to be able to sit down and get your thoughts out there, interact with other people and be a part of that ongoing dialogue and victory blog. Hey, I do read it. I do like it a lot. So let’s turn back to your topic of technology. I’m always interested in people who had a first career before they went to law school. I’m curious what you think about technology in the law, you know, how things are changing? Whether you’re worried, you know, I kind of come up with this once in a while. How worried should we be that AI is going to replace lawyers are we always going to need good lawyers on the back end to be able to make sure that whatever AI produced products are out there are being done with the right parameters. I mean that that’s kind of my non techie take on this right? What what’s your techie take on the way technology is changing the way we practice law?

 

Simon Igelman  14:00 

So I personally think, from my experience working in a firm that dealt with I personally think there’s always going to be a need for lawyers to check over what AI does in this respect. First of all, the legal field is ripe for innovation. Lawyers we’re pretty traditional, I think, you know, the generals were pretty traditional. And what COVID has taught us is we need to adapt, we need that the new see more innovation. But I definitely think there’s going to be the need for a conventional lawyer because these systems are by far not perfect. And they’re gonna need a lot of fine tuning. And there’s going to be a lot of valuable input lawyers are going to have in creating these systems and continue to develop these systems of AI that might end up doing a lot of lawyer work, I still think there’s going to be a need for lawyers, in my opinion.

 

Jonathan Bench  14:43 

It’s funny, Fred and I work on deals together quite a bit. And I said to him the other day, this guy on the other side kept telling us reminding us that he was a lawyer, he was acting in a in a kind of intermediary capacity in a in a transaction. He kept reminding us he was a lawyer. And then I reviewed a contract that he wrote and I was thinking, you know guess you’re a lawyer, I’ve seen better contracts out of second year associates. And you’re farther along in your career than that, you know, I think one of the best pieces of advice that I never got from anyone in my life that I developed, I try to share now with younger people, including my kids is that if you’re passionate about something, in any industry, there will always be a place for smart, dedicated people. Right? I mean, we used to I grew up I graduated high school in 2000. And that was when the.com era was happening. And I naively assumed as an 18 year old that I already understand what stood what was going on, and that the technology field was already flushed full of talented people, and I would have to go find something else to do, which is why I ended up as a lawyer, I probably would have ended up as a programmer of some kind of if someone had told me that advice. I said, if you’re into technology, or you’re into whatever, you know, become top of your field work hard. There always be a place for good, innovative people and in whatever space you’re involved in.

 

Simon Igelman  15:55 

Yeah, for sure, there’s definitely going to be a need for lawyers at the forefront of the legal innovation fields, I feel that at least in the near future, they’re not going to be replaced so quickly.

 

Fred Rocafort  16:05 

So Simon, not long ago, we had a great interview with Andrew House. And we thank you for that recommendation. It was it was because of your recommendation that we got in touch with him. And one of the things that we talked about, and I found it to be to be fascinating, and hopefully our listeners will, will do as well. Was Andrews explanation of how of the differences really between the US and Canada when it when it comes to our legal systems. When it comes to our political systems. It’s just in general, it’s funny, because with some countries, I think there’s almost an interest in doing the opposite right to highlight the ways in which things might be more similar than people think I think with Canada, if anything, I think it’s the more interesting commentary is usually going to be in highlighting how the countries are different, right? Because I think especially on this side of the border, people just assume things are very, very similar. So it’s, I think there’s a lot of value in pointing out what’s not. So on that note, continuing the theme that we started with, with Andrew, perhaps there might be things that you can tell us about Canadian Trade law, or even Canadian business law more broadly, that on the one hand differ from the way things are here in the United States, or even perhaps, that are unique to Canada at a global level. Perhaps a good starting point might be to explain just how the provincial differences were not provincial differences, but just how much the provincial legislation can impact business law as opposed to the way the state law interacts with it with federal law here in general, anything you can tell us about that topic will where we’d be interested.

 

Simon Igelman  17:55 

Yeah, thank you. So with respect to trade, large international trade is something which is in the purview of the federal government under the Canadian Constitution. So that’s governed by the federal law, a trade law decisions are subject to the Canadian National trade tribunal. So that’s a quasi judicial body, which makes all decisions with respect to customs, export controls, etc. So with respect to the trade law level that’s governed federally and by the federal court system in Canada, but with respect to the business line, and what’s interesting, what is different between Canada, the United States is, in the United States, you have securities law is governed by federal legislation by federal agency by the securities exchange commission. In Canada, actually, securities law is governed by provincial governments and provincial legislation. And we have separate securities commissions for each province, we have the Ontario Securities Commission, you have the British Columbia Securities Commission, the Alberta Securities Commission, etc. And you have the Quebec has their own regulator as well. So you have that that’s actually a quirk in Canadian law, which is a little bit different than the US so you can deal with more than one regulatory body for securities law matters, as opposed to the US also, all business law really is governed except for tax is all governed at the provincial level. So you have like different corporate laws are different for each province. I think the a lot of the states in the United States are similar in that respect. But there is federal corporate legislation, but a lot of the legislation with respect to corporate law is also provincial. In Canada, there is actually a clear delineation in the Canadian Constitution in Section 92 of the Canadian Constitution, of what is under the purview of the federal government and what matters are under the purview of the provincial government. And that kind of is the backbone of Canadian federalism. And it’s actually education, health securities, Business Law, a lot of that is governed by the provincial legislation and taxation trade and a lot of other matters are strictly under the purview of the federal government.

 

Jonathan Bench  19:53 

It is interesting how much oversight the Canadian securities regulators have within the provinces. I was I was a little surprised at how I don’t wanna say heavy handed, but they definitely brought the full weight of their authority, you know, take their, their mandate very seriously. And that, you know, and if you’re in a transaction that that encompasses more than one province, it is you’re you’re really dealing at a very deep level with multiple provincial authorities. And I wasn’t expecting that. When I did my first my first deal with Canadian firm.

 

Simon Igelman  20:25 

Yeah, it is it is interesting because, for example, if a company’s not updated filings could have a number of sanctions imposed upon it by a different provincial regulator. So it’s interesting, you see that? If a company is offering the securities in multiple provinces, yeah, it’s subject to a lot of different authorities.

 

Jonathan Bench  20:42 

And even approval, you know, approval for a license in the cannabis space from one province is not guaranteed to translate into another province. It’s really a new review. It’s certainly not guaranteed to happen. And I think that’s common within the US states as well for companies Canada, cannabis companies that are used to dealing in the United States will understand that, you know, that nuance as well of trying to go from one Canadian province to another.

 

Simon Igelman  21:10 

Yeah, when I was working in a private equity firm during the summers in law school, one of the first things I’ve been tasked to do is with to correspond with provincial regulators with respect to the ability of private companies to open cannabis stores, because under the original plan, when cannabis was federally legalized in Canada, for the provinces kind of had to choose how they will deal with it, how they were doled out licenses for the retail and distribution of cannabis. So Ontario had originally opted for a model similar to how they sell alcohol, which was they control the sale of cannabis. And they will be the ones that exclusive right to retail it other provinces out west Alberta and British Columbia, they opted for more of a private model where they’ll grant licenses to private companies to distribute and sell cannabis. So it was interesting, I really got to see the variance in that respect to how different provinces dealt with cannabis.

 

Jonathan Bench 22:05

You know, in your work and living in Canada. I’m always interested in other countries perspective on what’s happening in the world. Right when my news sources are not only us, but my perspective is us. So I’m curious in your, in your work and discussing with other attorneys at the firm and dealing with clients. What types of countries are in the crosshairs now in Canada, I mean, I got is from China plays a massive role. Besides China, there are other countries that that tend to come to the forefront in Canadian international business relations.

 

Simon Igelman  22:35 

So China is definitely prominent, you know, as you’d mentioned, it’s definitely comes to the forefront, we’re talking about international business relations, really being that a large majority of our trade is done with the United States. Any development in the United States is of extreme importance in Canada, really, our economies are linked by the hip. and Canadian businesses and families are always following developments in the United States, because it has a real profound impact on what happens over here. And traditionally, Canada has been a big exporter of lumber and other materials to the US and, and we do 90% of our trading with the US. So really, it’s 95% of the focus is on the developments in the US. And anything that happens with respect to business in the US has an immediate effect on Canada.

 

Jonathan Bench  23:26 

It’s interesting, you mentioned lumber, because of course lumber prices right now, or at least in the United States are through the roof. And everyone’s complaining about how expensive it is right? I have a friend I my first firm was in Bangor, Maine. And I have a good friend who is a banker in Maine. And he wrote a white paper not too long ago, I actually may use this, I may drop this into a recommendation now that I’m thinking about it. But it’s an article about the logging industry generally. And the point of his article, one of the points is that the price that the loggers are getting paid has not increased. So the price increase has come after the loggers right. And so it’s interesting to get that insight into the logging industry because I know we have a lot of timber that comes in from Canada. Maine certainly has a lot on the east coast. And you know others other states as well as Pacific Northwest as well known for lumber. So it’s an interesting to really see those dynamics and you know how they play out right? And everyone wants to look back and say, well, who can we blame for the way the economy is now? Right. And part of it’s just a matter of supply and demand. I mean, really, in the International Space trading space, it really does come down to those simple factors of supply and demand of course with all of the other factors in the mix as well.

 

Simon Igelman  24:40 

Yeah, it’s definitely seeing how the price of lumber is gone through the roof. I that’s something people keep talking about, especially people I know in the construction industry. They’re shocked. It’s through the roof.

 

Fred Rocafort  24:53 

Yeah, I noticed I was at a local bar event last week and then people were talking about This right I mean, it’s gotten to that point where you can go to a networking event for lawyers, and this is one of the hot topics, I just want to go back to something you mentioned, what we would consider perhaps to be domestic developments here in the US can sometimes have, or, or often have an immediate effect elsewhere. You know, over time as I as I’ve had the chance to live overseas and meet people from different countries, one of one of the things that, that I’ve noticed one of the examples of this is how important the dollar is for people around the world. I mean, of course, it’s important to us as well. But for me, at least, at least until relatively recently, when I’ve started to pay attention for other reasons, I didn’t really pay that much attention to exchange rates unless I was traveling, right? I just, I just thought, well, doesn’t really matter, except as a matter of academic or professional interest, but it didn’t impact my, my life, you know, as I lived in the US, and over time, right, I’ve come to see how in places like Brazil and places like Vietnam and places like China, of course, this matters, you know, this is something that that impacts people’s decision making, you know, whether they keep their money in their dollar denominated account, or they move it over to another account. And again, I had to deal with this to some extent when I was working overseas, but that’s different. Right? I was I had chosen to live overseas. But to see how for other folks, this is just something that they have to deal with on a regular basis was really, really eye opening. So needless to say, we welcome the chance to, to hear perspectives provided by guests like you.

 

Simon Igelman  26:37 

Yeah, for sure. It’s a it’s definitely developments in the US where we can be viewed as being domestic, for us Canadians are really not domestic. And they’re followed, basically, as closely as domestic events in Canada because of the profound economic and a lot of time social effects they do have in Canada.

 

Fred Rocafort  26:54 

So Simon, this is the part of the podcast where we ask for recommendations, I’m going to take the liberty of adding your website to those so perhaps you just want to issue one more reminder of how our listeners can find it. But we’d also love to hear about any other recommendations that you might have for us whether that’s something you’ve read or watched or, or listened to,

 

Simon Igelman  27:19 

So yes, so thank you. Thank you very much for bringing that up. Yeah, my website is trade law report.com. That’s the website, you can type into Google trade law report calm and you’ll find our feed, which is constantly refreshing with the latest news on international trade and International Business Law and related topics. There are actually two feeds on Twitter and one with news. And we’re excited for where it’s going to be it’s going to go. So with respect to books and other resources that I found interesting, actually, I’ve two books that I that I’ve read recently that I really liked. So the first one is international trade law related matter in a book it’s called the World Trade law by Simon Lester, Brian Mercurio and Earl Davies. It’s a very technical read. It’s dense, but it’s extremely informative. So that’s what I would read. If I want to learn about international trade law world trade law. I would definitely read that book. Actually. Another interesting book that I had read recently over the past few months ago was called all the Shahs men by Stephen Kinzer. It’s actually a historical account of the 1953 coup d’etat in Iran. And I’m a history buff, so I eat all this stuff up, I love it. But really what struck me from about that book about that whole account, that was really what happened events in 1953 in Iran was how, you know, business decisions. International Trade decisions don’t exist in a vacuum that there’s actually the events of 1953 at red light at the intersection between trade economics and diplomacy, because what had happened was the Anglo Iranian oil company and the interests of the British government and the US government, any having Iranian oil come at a discount to England, really dictated how the events unfolded during that time and the overthrow the democratically elected government. And those decisions, those business decisions, really had a profound effect on world events going forward on the on the middle east on world history, and the economic and business decisions have an outsized impact on world history, and they can really determine the fate of the world. So that’s what really, that really struck me for that book and that whole episode in history, so I would recommend anyone’s read that book. It’s fascinating.

 

Fred Rocafort  29:38 

Thank you for that. Jonathan. I know that you thought of a recommendation as we spoke, you’ve got that ready for our audience.

 

Jonathan Bench  29:47 

I do. I found the link. So this is a substack article called Why is lumber so expensive, and when will things get back to normal? This is by a friend of mine named Ben Sprague and it’s a long form article Take a 15 or 20 minutes to read. And it’s fairly thick because Ben’s a smart guy, and he interviewed logging industry expert, and consultant. So he’s got industry information, he’s got graph showing the price of lumber per 1000 board feet increasing over 300%, from May 2020, to April 2021. And so it reminds me of a meme I saw on Facebook, I think, where the wife says, I wanted him to take me somewhere expensive for dinner, and they have a table set up at the lumber Island Home Depot. So it makes me think that all of this matters to us, right? I mean, all of these kind of questions we think about why what’s going on? Why is it? Why is my house costing me? You know, extra $100,000? When I thought they’d quoted me last year, there was gonna be less, right. So these big questions and even smaller, you know, you putting a deck on your house or something. There are there are questions. And it’s fun when people actually dig it and say, well, there’s a reason this is this is a commodity. You know, commodity prices are affected by global markets. And if you in case you didn’t know, there’s a pandemic on and so this is this is changing. So, a lot of fun. Good read wise lumber, so expensive. Fred, what do you have for us?

 

Fred Rocafort  31:20 

Before I forget, Jonathan,

this might be of interest to others who are listening to us. Speaking of substack, Matt Tybee, put out a call today for interesting articles that he can share on his sub stack. And, you know, he’s keeping a very open mind when it comes to the topics that he’d like to cover. But it seems to me that this article might actually fit the bill. So might be something you might want to tell your friend but we’ll make it easy for you, we’ll we’ll include a link to it in our blogs so that you can see his description of what he’s looking for, there might be stuff that that you’ve run across that fits the bill, or maybe you want to be the one writing that. So that’s a, I guess, a first recommendation of sorts. But the formal recommendation, if you will, is an article dated June 6 from the Atlantic, how academic freedom ends by Timothy McLaughlin. And it is an article about what’s happening in the educational context in Hong Kong, how the different measures being taken by the local government. And by extension, the Chinese authorities in Beijing are just really destroying these institutions, at least from the point of view of them being places where people are free to share ideas. It was really a harsh read for me, first of all, I actually studied at a university in Hong Kong. But beyond that, I when I was living there, I would very often find myself at university campuses because they were convenient jumping off points for for hikes, or because there was some events taking place there or just because it was a nice place to, to to hang out and enjoy the subsidized dimsum or what have you. It’s very sad to read about how universities are changing for the worst. So again, how academic freedom ends by Timothy McLaughlin. It seems like this is becoming a hot topic. I read something else earlier today. I don’t have the details handy, but it was an article on quillette about the same general topic. So might want to start off with this one. And then if the topic is of interest, you can look for other stuff. On that note. Simon, I’d like to thank you once again for joining us.

 

Simon Igelman  33:37 

Thank you very much, Jonathan Fred, for having me. I look forward to being in touch. Thank you.

 

Jonathan Bench  33:43 

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode. We look forward to connecting with you on social media to continue discussing developments in global law and business. This podcast was produced by Harris Sliwoski with executive producer Madeline Williams music composed by Stephen Schmid. Tune in next week for another episode. We’ll see you then.

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai