Takatori Wakako

Wakako Takatori, a Japanese national, had taken a creativity break from her work as an in-house legal counsel at The Walt Disney Company in Tokyo to pursue the challenging MILE Programme (Master of International Law and Economics) at the World Trade Institute, Switzerland in 2007. Coming from a services industry, her master thesis dealt with Cross-border Trade of Personal Data: Impact of Privacy Laws on the Private Sector and Analysis under GATS Framework.

Prior to joining Disney’s legal team as a counsel, Ms. Takatori worked as an associate lawyer at Shearman & Sterling LLP, where she focused her practice on the U.S. securities law, serving domestic and multinational companies. Before joining Shearman & Sterling, Ms. Takatori advised clients on international trade and IP law matters at the law firm of deKieffer & Horgan in Washington D.C. and Germany.

Ms. Takatori is currently an in-house legal counsel at a subsidiary of Universal Pictures International in Tokyo. She had been a guest speaker at conferences and university lectures, including Temple University and aoyama Gakuin University on a wide range of topics addressing different aspects of the legal counsel’s role in multinational business models. Her professional and personal interests lead her to research the needed multinational CSR standards and the potential role of  WTO law in their development.

Ms. Takatori holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Richmond - School of Law (Virginia) and is licensed in the state of Virginia and Washington D.C. She is also admitted at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, the United States Court of International Trade and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.