A trade mission that will include legal specialists from the US state of Rhode Island will visit Leeds in September with the aim of consolidating growing ties between law firms in Yorkshire and the New England region of the US.
Building on two previous annual visits to Yorkshire in 2016 and 2017, intellectual property and trademark specialist Donald Frugé and Alan Feeney of Rhode Island-based Feeney Law will meet with a number of prominent Yorkshire lawyers.
Frugé said: “With increasing numbers of Yorkshire businesses trading with the US and vice versa, there is a great deal of synergy in the work that law firms in Rhode Island and in Yorkshire are now doing.”
“Working relationships and networks are strengthening and new trade opportunities are emerging and this has forged a sense of community among lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic.”
He added: “It will be good to get the chance to meet so many Yorkshire lawyers and other business people face to face, and also to establish long-term relationships with some of the law firms based here who have international clients.”
The Rhode Island trade mission will be in Leeds from 18 September until 20 September, after visiting law firms and other businesses in Edinburgh.
Stefan Pryor, secretary of commerce for Rhode Island, will head up the mission comprising seven US businesses and a team of commerce and tourism officials, which will go on to visit Manchester.
The mission, which is supported by the US Commercial Service and organised by the state’s trade body, Commerce RI, will arrive in Cork, Ireland, on 16 September, to kick off a programme of events and one-to-one meetings being planned with local businesses and trade advisers in Kinsale, Galway, Dublin and Cork.