Dear WSG Members,

We are off to a good start for the new year with numerous WSG activities, events, and initiatives to share with you. We have held the WSG regional meetings in the Americas, Asia and coming up in Europe. The meetings continue to be important events for the members to integrate the network and each of our firms on a regional basis. During the regional meetings, we have had the opportunity to brief the attendees on the impressive level of work and collaboration occurring within the network. Please continue to register your client matters and other forms of collaboration within members directly on the WSG site under the Referral Tracker feature as this data is critical to WSG in multiple respects and enables us to better serve the members. To quote Michael Bloomberg himself, "in God we trust. For all others, bring data!"

I am also excited to provide you more information on our new relationship with Bloomberg BNA, the legal, tax and compliance arm of the Bloomberg group. Our exclusive Bloomberg relationship offers several benefits to our members including access to their on-line continuing legal education courses, practice forums and access to online resources. Our first event with Bloomberg will be held at its offices in New York on Tuesday, June 20, 2017 from 1.00 PM to 5.00 PM and will be held to coincide with our Board of Directors meeting. The program will address several interesting international topics developed with Bloomberg's market driven data. Although the event has size limitations, we are expecting that there will be an opportunity for member firms to send a representative to attend. We are excited about the opportunity to associate with Bloomberg.

As the year continues so do our recruiting efforts. North America continues to be a top focus for WSG, but as we all know there are many changes happening in all three of our service industries. Please feel free to contact me with any suggestions for possible candidates for new WSG member firms.

Finally, our annual WSG meeting is scheduled for September 14-15 in Rome, Italy. Please register early on the WSG site. Once again, thank you to Francesco Gianni and the firm Gianni, Origoni, Grippo & Partners for their gracious support. I am confident this event will be an excellent meeting.

To close, although there are numerous international challenges facing the world, organizations such as WSG promote international commerce, understanding, and friendship. Thanks to each of you for your small role. Hope to see you soon at an upcoming WSG event.

Sincerely,

Larry B. Pascal, Chair
Haynes and Boone, LLP