I’m Ted Folkman. I am a lawyer at Murphy & King, a law firm in Boston, Massachusetts, with offices in Washington, D.C. and New York City. You can learn more about me here. Letters Blogatory started off as a personal project aiming to fill what seemed to me to be a gap in the legal blogosphere in the area of international judicial assistance. There are lots of blogs that cover international law, and even private international law. (See my blogroll for the names of some of the law blogs I read regularly). But as far as I know, Letters Blogatory is the first blog to treat international judicial assistance as a blog-worthy topic in its own right.
So—Letters Blogatory covers international judicial assistance in civil and commercial cases. In particular, we cover:
- Service of process abroad, including service under the Hague Service Convention
- Obtaining evidence abroad for use in the United States, including proceedings under the Hague Evidence Convention
- Obtaining evidence in the United States for use abroad, including proceedings under the judicial assistance statute
- Recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments
- Recognition and enforcement of international arbitral awards, including awards under the New York Convention
- Authentication of foreign public documents, including use of the Hague Apostille Convention
I try not to exceed the scope of coverage, but sometimes I can’t help myself. But you shouldn’t count on Letters Blogatory to cover issues outside our scope of coverage, even closely related issues such forum non conveniens, motions to compel arbitration, and the like. I cover foreign cases occasionally, but for the most part I write about judicial assistance for the American practitioner.
I thank my colleagues at Murphy & King for allowing me the time to work on this project, and for covering some of the nominal costs of running Letters Blogatory. But Letters Blogatory is a personal project, and the views I express here are my own, not those of Murphy & King or anyone else.
I hope you find Letters Blogatory useful! If you have comments on the blog, suggestions for improvement, or would like to contribute as a guest writer, please let me know.
