Brian Bellerose is an attorney and adjunct professor of law. He graduated from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and the University of Chicago and studied education at Columbia University. Brian has taught US business law, international business law, legal language and writing at several universities such as Concordia University of Chicago, Suffolk University Law School and Bentley University. He also has several years of experience teaching English to foreign language speakers. Brian's legal career has specialized in international business, investments and financial services. He has over 25 years of experience advising multi-national companies and start-ups. He was the General Counsel and Managing Director of Renaissance Capital and MDM Group in Moscow Russia, the General Counsel of Oriflame Cosmetics, a publicly-traded company headquartered in Brussels Belgium. He was also the General Counsel of two groups of investment funds—Kazimir Funds, which specialized in investing in the former Soviet Union and BeiKai Capital, a group of private equity funds in China. Brian lives in New York City.

Donald Cannon graduated from the University of Washington, Seattle. He began his professional life working first as translator for business concerns involved in commerce with the USSR, soon acting as negotiator and commercial representative as East-West trade increased. During this time, he also participated enthusiastically in citizen diplomacy and the Sister Cities Program. After the dissolution of the USSR, Donald embraced the economic changes taking place in Russia and, following the then-popular trend, he helped create several joint ventures. In the 1990s, he also established and managed a new business venture in Russia and was responsible for all of its operations, including complex technical issues. Donald ardently supports cultural diversity and has always advocated for pinpointing and interpreting societal differences and their underlying realities; he believes this to be as important as interpreting words and ideas. Operating on this conviction, he has supplied in-depth Russian company profiles to Western investors, mediated in contract negotiations and edited English-language website for Russian businesses. Wherever Donald has been throughout his career, he has always taught English, also using the principle that experiencing cultural differences is the root of language acquisition. To grasp English fully, we need to perceive its culture from the inside out. Traditional instruction in Russia, however, typically explains English and its culture from the outside in. Donald’s approach is to restore the inside-out flow and to give students a sudden “Aha!” experience uniting both language and culture.

Sergey Danilov obtained his Juris Doctor degree from Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University (Arlington, Virginia). A native of St.Petersburg, Russia, he spent over 30 years in various parts of the world, including the United States, Europe, and Central America, and speaks several languages. Currently he lives in France where he consults international clientele on various aspects of commercial and corporate law. At Pericles he teaches Language of Сontracts, Contract Drafting, Business Organizations, Transactional Lawyering and International Asset Recovery.

Marian Dent is the Dean of Pericles Center for International Legal Education, which runs an LLM program as well as legal skills programs for Russian practicing lawyers. Dean Dent teaches courses in legal writing, international business transactions, contract law and economic sanctions law. In addition to teaching law and directing the program, she also created Pericles’ texts on legal writing and legal English, helped develop materials for GMAT and TOEFL preparation, and occasionally teaches the logic section of the GMAT. Professor Dent obtained her Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall) in 1988. After graduating Ms. Dent joined the Washington, D.C. law firm of Kirkpatrick and Lockhart, and worked there for four years in the fields of East-West and international trade, securities and general business law. She moved to Moscow in 1992 to direct the Moscow office of the American Bar Association, CEELI Project. After leaving CEELI, she taught legal writing, and intro to American Law, at the Russian Law Academy of the Russian Ministry of Justice from 1995-1998, and started the first Russian Jessup International Moot Court competition. She has also taught from time to time at Moscow University Touro, the American Institute of Business & Economics, and for ten years taught an introductory course in Russian Law for visiting students from the University of San Diego Law School. She was one of the founders of Pericles, and became Dean in 2002.

Paul Richard Engelke is an advocate practicing at the Pretoria Bar in South Africa. He graduated from the University of Port Elizabeth in 1991 with a B-Juris and immediately started working as a Public Prosecutor. In 1995 the Department of Justice relocated him to Pretoria. While in Pretoria he enrolled at the University of Pretoria where he graduated with a LLB. He completed the Law School for attorneys in 2001 and practiced as an attorney for a year. In 2002 he was admitted as an Advocate to the High Court of SA. In 2003 he worked for the Special Investigation Unit of the National Prosecution Authority where he spent 12 years specializing in the investigation and prosecution of Fraud, Corruption and Serious Commercial Crimes. He also headed up the Anti-Money Laundering unit of the SIU, it was during his time at the SIU that he was invited and attended a Forensic Investigation Course at the Russian Federal Detectives Collage, in Moscow. From 2015 he shared his time between his advocate duties and giving lectures to students in Criminal law and Forensic Investigations in Pretoria. Mr Engelke also completed the CELTA course and teaches English as a foreign language.

Eric Johnson is a veteran digital rights activist Eric Johnson has architected or managed projects supporting independent media and networks, uncensored internet access, pro-cyberliberty internet policy, and progressive national ICT regulatory frameworks on all continents—throughout the post-socialist space, the Balkans, Palestine, Nigeria, Zambia, Ethiopia, Syria, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil, Nicaragua, and many others. He has taught cybersecurity workshops to hundreds of activists, journalists, and lawyers in over a dozen countries. He also works on developing and deploying online privacy-enhancing/security-preserving technologies, e.g. Tor, Ricochet, Lantern, GlobaLeaks, and CertainTLS. An American born in Africa, he has lived/worked in Australia, China, France, Russia, and Singapore. He studied at Grinnell College, Georgetown University, the Pushkin Institute, and the University of New South Wales / ADFA.

Prof. Vladimir Lissniak, RF Honored Human Rights Defender, president of Pericles, has extensive experience in public, private and NGO sectors, diplomatic service, law practice, and academic activity. He has worked as a consultant in the Moscow Mayor’s Office, for the Administration the RF President. He has been practicing law privately for the last 30 years for Russian and foreign clients in courts of general and special jurisdiction in a number of countries and Strasbourg court of human rights. Mr. Lissniak has taught American Business Law, Banking Law, Negotiations and other courses in the Institute of International Law of the Russian Ministry of Justice, MGIMO, Higher School of Economics, University of San Diego (California), the American Institute of Business and Economics (AIBEC), Immanuel Kant Baltic State University. He was chief editor of the Russian edition of “The Banking Law” by prof. Gavalda and prof. Stoufflet (France).

Moritz Näf is the founding partner of the Swiss law firm Apex Legal. His fields of expertise include contract and corporate law as well as commercial dispute resolution. Moritz’s clients are predominantly Swiss and foreign corporations and entrepreneurs as well as wealthy individuals. Moritz acquired his law degree at the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 1999 and holds an LL.M. in European Law from the University of Lund, Sweden (2002). He was admitted to the Swiss bar in 2001 and is entitled to represent clients before all Swiss courts and administrative bodies. Before founding Apex Legal in 2024, he worked for several leading law firms in Zurich as well as the largest Swiss Bank UBS AG. Moritz is a native German speaker and is fluent in English, French, Swedish and Norwegian. In addition, he has a solid command of Russian. In his free time, he enjoys alpine skiing, travelling, photography as well as spending time with his children.

Uliana Veller (Cooke) is a recognised leader in international arbitration and litigation, Uliana Veller (Cooke) is a dual-qualified English and Russian lawyer with over a decade of experience resolving complex, high-stakes cross-border disputes. Based in London, she is a partner at M.B. KEMP LLP, where she provides strategic counsel to multinational corporations, sovereign entities, and high-net-worth individuals.
Uliana's expertise includes disputes in the natural resources sector, commodities trading, shareholder and M&A conflicts, financial disputes, and matters arising from international sanctions regimes.
Uliana is highly regarded by Legal 500, which describes her as:
✅ “A hardworking and industrious lawyer with an entrepreneurial spirit. Very intelligent and a great collaborator.”
✅ “A young, talented, and ambitious partner with a tremendous work ethic and great with clients."
Uliana is sought after for her ability to navigate complex, multi-jurisdictional disputes. She has successfully led cases in international commercial and investment treaty arbitration, enforcement of arbitral awards, and litigation before English courts. Her experience spans major arbitration frameworks, including LCIA, ICC, SIAC, UNCITRAL, ICSID, and ad hoc arbitrations, with clients from the CIS, Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. She has also played a key role in high-profile English court cases, securing interim relief, managing parallel arbitration and litigation, handling sophisticated fraud and asset recovery matters, and advising on public international law.
In addition, Uliana is a Professor at Pericles Law Center where she teaches international commercial arbitration and is a Teaching Fellow at the specialised international arbitration LLM programme at Queen Mary University of London. Uliana also sits as an arbitrator and co-heads the Working Group on Online Dispute Resolution as part of the Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center.

Holger Zscheyge works as an executive in legal and tax publishing in Russia since 1996. First for the local subsidiaries of C.H. Beck (German legal publisher) and Wolters Kluwer (global provider of professional information, software solutions, and services), since 2009 for his own publishing company Infotropic Media.
In 2015, he started to branch out into legal technology as a speaker, event organizer, expert and mentor. Holger is the organizer of Moscow Legal Tech (first legal tech conference in Russia), Legal AI (first conference on AI in the legal domain in Russia), co-organizer of several ELTACons (annual conference of ELTA) and FutureLaw (legal innovation conference in the Baltics) and a frequent speaker on legal tech and innovation at conferences in Germany, UK, Spain, France, Israel, Turkey, Romania, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. In 2017, he co-founded Moscow Legal Hackers and joined the European Legal Technology Association (ELTA), where he currently serves as member of the board.
Holger works as a mentor for legaltech startups for the Founder Institute and serves as advisor to several legaltech companies.