Dimitry Afanasiev,member of the Partners' Committee of EPAM became the first Russian lawyer to sit on the Board of Advisers of Best Lawyers in America. Also, the Best Lawyers Board of Advisers includes Jerome Shestack, former President of the American Bar Association and EPA&P’s US senior adviser.

The Best Lawyers also has a Board of Advisors for volumes designating the best lawyers in every major economy. Its Advisory Boards include legal luminaries from major world economies, as well as general counsel from global companies. Dimitry Afanasiev is also on the Board of the Best Lawyers Board of Advisors for Russia. Other representatives from Russia who joined the Board of Advisers were Konstantin Chuichenko, Head of the Legal Department and a Member of the Management Committee, Gazprom, and Igor Maydannik, Executive Vice-President, Legal Support, TNK-BP

On the 1 June, Dimitry Afanasiev and Jerome Shestack took part in a landmark event: the inaugural Best Lawyers Bet-the-Company Forum. Only the 416 lawyers who were listed in the category “Bet-the-Company Litigation” in the most recent edition of Best Lawyers, both U.S. and Canada, were invited to participate in this extraordinary weekend of panels and presentations specifically designed for lawyers who manage make-or-break litigation.

Jerome Shestack, past President of the ABA and US senior adviser of EPAM, moderated a panel on choosing legal representation for Bet-the-Company cases. Dimitry Afanasiev spoke on the panel, together with the Executive Vice President and General Counsel of two major global corporations.

The Forum opened the evening of Thursday, May 31, with a private dinner and dancing in the rotunda of the Guggenheim Museum, one of the greatest indoor spaces in America.

“It is a great honour to have become the first Russian lawyer to be included on the Board of Advisors of the oldest and most authoritative ratings publication in the legal profession” said Dimitry Afanasiev.

Best Lawyers in America is the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. For 25 years, Best Lawyers lists have earned the respect of the profession, the media, and the public, as the most reliable, unbiased source of legal referrals anywhere. Best Lawyers compiles lists of outstanding attorneys by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. In the U.S., Best Lawyers publishes an annual referral guide, The Best Lawyers in America, which includes 29,575 attorneys in 78 specialties, covering all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It also has begun to publish annual referral guides for the Best Lawyers in other major countries, including Russia.