Gaela K Gehring Flores

Allen & Overy LLP

Washington, D.C. www.allenovery.com

gaela.gehringflores@allenovery.com Tel: +1 202 683 3861

Biography

Gaela Gehring Flores is a partner in Allen & Overy’s international arbitration practice. Gaela represents multinational corporations and sovereign states in international commercial and investment arbitrations in the Americas. Gaela’s experience includes over 50 high-profile ICSID, ICC, LCIA, PCA, and ICDR/AAA arbitrations as well as litigation and appellate proceedings before US federal courts. Gaela co-chairs the DC Bar Inter-American Legal Affairs Committee and hosts the DC Bar podcast “The Tea on International Arbitration”.

I told my mother at a very young age that I was going to be president. I shifted a bit from there and decided by age 12 that I wanted to be a lawyer. I am not sure where I got the idea to become a lawyer. Call it divine intervention. As I got older, I also realised that I didn’t just want to be a lawyer; I wanted to be a lawyer who got to practice bilingually in Latin America. My legal career began as a law clerk for the Hon. Paul Friedman at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and an associate at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. I shared my dream of developing a dispute resolution practice in Latin America with Judge Friedman, and, being the excellent mentor that he is, he connected me with Carolyn Lamm and Abby Cohen Smutny. Eventually I would get to work with these amazing women, which helped confirm my calling.

What part of your international arbitration practice do you enjoy the most?

I truly enjoy the dynamism of moving between and engaging in multiple legal regimes, whether contemplating an issue of public international law, or the overlapping international legal issues between sovereign states and international corporate entities. My practice is inseparable from my team, and I have especially enjoyed getting to build teams that are not just substantively preeminent but also collaborative and committed to our shared vision. Every day I learn something from the brilliant people I get to call colleagues, attorneys and non-attorneys alike. In this latest chapter of my professional journey, I have very much enjoyed getting to join forces with Patrick Pearsall. He is a superb attorney, a wonderful human being, and I could not imagine a better partner for cultivating an Americas practice.

What steps can be made to increase diversity in the arbitration field?

Accountability is critical, particularly at the management and partner level. What does this mean in practice? It means getting beyond words and diving into action by establishing concrete goals for increasing not only diversity, but equity and inclusion as well. And, given the role that compensation plays in the law firm world, in order to see meaningful progress, partners and managers should see their compensation affected by demonstrable efforts that have led to increased diversity, equity, and inclusion. Furthermore, the work of Kate Manne should be required reading for anyone who truly wishes to contribute to and lead efforts to increase DEI.

What are the advantages of having diverse geographical and sector experience? What benefits does it deliver to clients?

I am dangerously treading in one of my younger sister’s fields of expertise – neuropsychology – but what science tells us (and what many of us have known from experience) is that increased diversity in the types of things you learn leads to the development of more extensive and complex neural pathways. Learning more than one language, or gaining diverse geographical, legal culture and sector experiences allows for more thorough, sophisticated, and creative problem solving for clients.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of arbitration compared to litigation?

The most significant advantage of arbitration over litigation is arbitral decisions’ comparative ease of global enforceability. I also note arbitration’s considerable agility during the pandemic: when many courts were bogged down in traditional rules requiring in-person hearings and hard copy evidence, arbitration demonstrated its power and agility to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances, swiftly adopting and developing virtual and digital solutions to a world in crisis.

The current arbitration market is reportedly working with a small pool of arbitrators, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find arbitrators who do

not have a conflict of interest. Do you agree, and if so, how can this issue be effectively addressed?

The current arbitration market is working with a small and inexcusably non-diverse pool of arbitrators. It is thus no wonder that conflicts have become an issue. All players in the international arbitration market – arbitral institutions, law firms, established arbitrators, and parties to arbitrations – need to prioritise diversity in arbitrator selection. This is not an issue of a shortage of qualified diverse candidates; it is the reluctance of nearly all players in the system to move away from the cramped, non-diverse pool of arbitrators that has been and continues to be favoured.

Some practitioners report that, post pandemic, arbitration costs are deterring parties from bringing matters. Is this your experience?

In my experience, arbitration costs are not a significant deterrent – either pre- or post-pandemic – to parties initiating arbitral proceedings. I have experienced clients who are more reluctant to initiate adversarial proceedings (either litigation or arbitration) because they prioritise preserving an ongoing business relationship. Consequently, I have seen more parties during the pandemic willing to explore mediation or conciliation to resolve disputes.

How would you like to develop your practice over 2022-2023?

This coming year will be an exciting one for my practice. Allen & Overy is an international disputes powerhouse, which in many ways it is just being introduced in the Americas. My work will involve developing Allen & Overy’s connections to ensure that clients in the Americas continue to have access to the best legal teams in the world. The past few years have shown us the various disruptors at play in all industries across global markets. My practice over the next year will be hyper-focused on embracing the reality of endemic disruptors to develop legal strategies that best serve our clients’ needs.

Peers and clients say: “Gaela is absolutely brilliant in hearings” “She is an incredibly skilled cross-examiner” “Ms Gehring Flores does a tremendous job taking apart the other party’s testimony”