Bio

Etsuo Doi is a partner and intellectual property lawyer with Foley & Lardner LLP. He represents both Japan-based and international companies in matters relating to cross-border transactions, intellectual property, e-commerce, joint ventures, licensing and general corporate work. Etsuo is a member of the firm’s Business Law and Intellectual Property Departments and Transactional & Securities, International, Electronics, and Privacy, Security & Information Management Practices. He is also a member of the Energy Industry Team. Prior to joining Foley, Etsuo was a partner at other major U.S. law firms. Previously, he was corporate counsel at eBay, Inc. and chief legal counsel at eBay Japan KK. He started working for eBay as outside counsel in early 1999 shortly after its successful IPO when eBay was seeking to expand globally. While serving as outside counsel, he had found the value of working more closely with eBay to experience the then novel e-commerce business model with a number of uncertain legal issues as well as to gain business experience. He decided to join eBay as in-house counsel as well as one of the top executives for eBay Japan K.K. Etsuo is one of very few Japanese lawyers who has real experience in Internet business and legal issues. He was an AFS exchange student during his senior year of high school staying with a host family in Westchester County, New York. The host father was a partner of a leading New York law firm. Through his experience, he developed a much deeper understanding of U.S. culture than most Japanese bengoshi. Utilizing his rather unique bilingual and bicultural skills with private practice experience, in-house legal practice experience, start-up experience, business experience, experience in having worked both in traditional Japanese organizations and U.S. style organizations, etc., Etsuo has developed a unique practice of reasonable combination of inbound and outbound legal work. Inbound practice is for assisting foreign clients in their Japanese investments and Japanese legal issues, or for assisting Japanese clients as a counterparty to foreign companies investing into Japan. Outbound practice is for assisting Japanese clients on various overseas legal matters of the United States and other countries. Outbound practice area is broader than inbound as hei serves to organize the team at Foley and becomes the contact person for various legal issues for Japanese clients.