DAJV LL.M. Days 2020 | Virtual Seminar & Fair

Dr. Daniel Biene attended law school with a media industry focus in Germany, Hong Kong, the United States, and Switzerland. In addition to his law degree from Germany and an LL.M. from Cardozo Law School in New York he holds a Ph.D. in international media law and economics from the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition. After working for Clifford Chance in Hong Kong and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Berlin he switched his career to the management side and worked in C-level leadership roles for large media companies. Most recently he served as President & CEO of a U.S. subsidiary of Axel Springer, the international media group. During this time he was responsible for several widely known digital media and digital platform brands. He then became a serial entrepreneur and founded successful internet startups backed by renowned venture capital funds. Among the startups founded and led by him are Smartlaw (acquired by Wolters Kluwer) and Legalbase (acquired by LegalZoom), both of which pioneered the legal tech category in Europe. After Smartlaw was acquired he became Managing Director of all of Wolters Kluwer’s digital B2C platform businesses. Later, he took on responsibility for Axiom’s operations in Europe. Dr. Biene is one of only a handful of people with deep leadership experience in both large global corporations as well as internet startups managed according to lean and agile best practices. When working with clients, he places a particular emphasis on combining the best of both worlds, in order to generate tangible and sustainable results quickly. Based on his personal experience, Dr. Biene is intimately familiar with the critical importance of the human factor for the success of ventures large and small. This includes the challenges and opportunities created by digitization, generational change, and globalization in the workplace. He enjoys helping create purpose-driven, highly motivated and truly impactful teams. Dr. Biene is a frequently invited speaker on topics of innovation and digital transformation. He has been serving on the Board of the German-American Lawyers Association for more than 20 years.

Jessica Hawickenbrauck studied law at Bielefeld University, where she specialized in criminal law. She completed her studies in 2018 and then worked as a research assistant at her university. From 2019 to 2020, she completed her LL.M. in Criminal Law at the State University of New York in Buffalo. She is currently completing her two-year legal traineeship at the Regional Court in Kleve. She is an active member of the German-American Lawyers’ Association.

Markus Hawickenbrauck received a bachelor’s degree in Legal Management from Bielefeld University in 2016. In 2018 he completed his law degree and worked as a research assistant. From 2019-2020 he completed the General LL.M. Program from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is an active member of the German-American Lawyers’ Association and is currently completing a two-year legal clerkship at the Regional Court in Kleve.

Toni Jaeger-Fine is passionate about making herself the best professional she can be — and helping others do the same. A graduate of Duke Law School, Toni was a litigator at Crowell & Moring before joining academia. She worked at NYU and Cardozo Law Schools before joining Fordham Law nearly 15 years ago. Toni is the author of numerous articles, several books on the US legal system, and Becoming a Lawyer: Discovering and Defining Your Professional Persona. She blogs at YourProfessionalPersona.com.

Markus Nauheim is a partner in the Munich office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is dual-qualified and admitted both as Rechtsanwalt in Germany and as Attorney at Law in New York. Mr. Nauheim focuses his practice on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions, private equity investments, as well as cross-border joint ventures. He also advises on general corporate and capital markets law, corporate governance issues as well as in connection with crisis management and crisis communication. Handelsblatt and The Best Lawyers™ have recognized Mr. Nauheim in its list of Germany’s Best Lawyers 2020/2021 in the categories Corporate Law, M&A, Litigation and Arbitration and Mediation. The JUVE Handbook 2019/2020 lists Mr. Nauheim as one of the frequently recommended lawyers for Corporate. The Legal 500 Deutschland 2020 recommends him for Corporate, Compliance and Internal Investigations. Chambers Global 2020 recognize him as Foreign Expert for USA in the areas of Corporate/M&A in Germany. Mr. Nauheim studied law at the University of Mainz, attended the Asia-America Institute in Transnational Law at the University of Hong Kong School of Law, and Duke University School of Law, from which he received his LL.M. degree in 1996. He is dual-qualified and has been admitted to the New York State Bar since 1997 and as a German lawyer since 1999. In 2000, he earned his doctor’s degree from the University of Mainz. Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Mr. Nauheim worked at a renowned U.S. law firm in Cologne and Washington, D.C. and, thereafter, in the Munich office of a major German law firm. In addition to having been seconded to the legal department of a German DAX 30 corporation, Mr. Nauheim has also worked in Gibson Dunn’s New York office. Mr. Nauheim is a member of the Central Board, and Co-Head of the Mergers & Acquisitions Working Group, of the German-American Lawyers Association (Deutsch-Amerikanische Juristen-Vereinigung e.V.). He is Chair of Duke Germany and from 2013 through 2019 was a member of the Duke Law Alumni Association Board of Directors. In 2009, he received the Forever Duke Award by the Duke Alumni Association of Duke University. In 2014, he was presented the International Alumni Award by Duke University School of Law. Mr. Nauheim speaks German and English.

Dr. Elisabeth Rudolf-Sipötz is Managing Director of BrainCapital GmbH and Member of the Board of the German Financial Network eV. She obtained her doctoral degree in business (Dr. oec. HSG) at the University of St. Gallen in 2001 based on her dissertation on «Customer Value». The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Torsten Tomczak, director of the University of St. Gallen Institute for Marketing and Trade (IMH-HSG). Elisabeth gained professional experience at Österreich Werbung (in Vienna and Barcelona), at the GGK (Vienna), at RudolfWitt & Company GmbH (Vallendar), as a research assistant at IMH-HSG and as a freelance marketing consultant. From 1989 to 1996, she studied journalism and communication sciences, law and commercial science in Vienna. In May 1996, she was awarded the Magistra of Social and Economic Sciences at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. During her years of study she was visiting as research scholar at the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University, Evanston, USA) and at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada).

Christine Seifert is a German-trained attorney who graduated from Georgetown University Law Center with an LL.M. in International Legal Studies in 2020. Christine received her first degree in law from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and concluded her Referendariat in her home state Bavaria. Before commencing her LL.M. at Georgetown, Christine practiced energy law in Munich. Christine currently lives in Washington, D.C. and works for an NGO on international climate matters.

Dr. Thomas Wenninger is a German „Rechtsanwalt“ with PwC Legal. Based in the firm’s Stuttgart and Frankfurt offices, he works in the field of Corporate/M&A and advises clients on business transactions, corporate structuring, shareholders‘ disputes and corporate litigation. Thomas studied law at the universities of Augsburg and Geneva. He spent his legal clerkship, amongst others, at a law firm in Miami and at the legal department of a DAX company in Munich. In 2008, he obtained a Master‘s degree from the George-Washington-University (Washington DC) and in 2009, he was awarded with a doctoral degree by the university of Augsburg. He is also qualified as attorney-at-law in New York. Before joining PwC, Thomas worked for another leading law firm in Stuttgart. Thomas is married and has three children.