Savannah-based law firm Hunter MacLean Exley & Dunn P.C. connected with Swedish companies wanting to enter the U.S. market at the annual Entrepreneurial Days conference in southern Sweden Aug. 20-23.

Scott Tobin, an attorney with Hunter MacLean who traveled with a Georgia delegation to Sweden, told GlobalAtlanta that he met many companies that will fit well in a Savannah “landing pad” facility soon to be opened by Inman Park Properties with Chris Miller of The Creative Coast Initiative to help Swedish businesses establish operations in the U.S.

Hunter MacLean, which Mr. Tobin said has been practicing law in some form for three centuries in Savannah, now focuses on corporate practice in the Southeast and throughout the U.S.

“We work with a number of entrepreneurial businesses, high-growth businesses within the greater community,” Mr. Tobin said in a video interview in Stockholm, Sweden’s capital. “We have a considerable level of international corporate and finance experience as well.”

The firm was invited by Mr. Miller to become the legal advisory arm of an aggregate of “service providers” that the landing pad will offer to Swedish companies to help them make a smooth overseas transition.

Mr. Tobin was selected as Hunter MacLean’s representative on the trip because of his experience with “both international and high-growth companies.”

“We wanted to be able to talk to the companies about some of the issues they were going to face and the ways we might address them as part of the landing pad process,” he said.

This abstract goal became a reality as a result of the numerous meetings at the Entrepreneurial Days conference. During the trip, Hunter MacLean began advising Mercon, a Swedish engineering services company, about how to navigate the U.S. legal system.

According to Mr. Tobin, Mercon wants to occupy space in the landing pad facility, which will be housed in an old hospital building that has been retrofitted to create a business environment. Hunter MacLean will be involved in helping Mercon gauge its legal liabilities before making the jump into the U.S. market, Mr. Tobin said.

Although Mercon hasn’t yet committed, the company will send a delegation in the fall to visit the facility, which Mr. Tobin said will offer an abundance of helpful resources.

“(The landing pad) presents them an opportunity to surround themselves with the advisers that they need: legal, financial and otherwise,” he said.

Hunter MacLean maintains offices in the Georgia port cities of Savannah and Brunswick. With more than 50 attorneys, the law firm is the largest Georgia firm outside of Atlanta, according to the firm’s Web site.

For more information about the conference, visit Wade Caldwell’s GlobalAtlanta trip blog.

– Wade Caldwell provided reporting for this story from Sweden.

Story Contacts, Links and Related Stories
Hunter MacLean – Scott Tobin 912-236-0261

9/04/2007 – Savannah Company Gets ‘Concrete’ Agreements in Sweden

Wade Caldwell’s trip blog from Sweden

8/20/2007 – GlobalAtlanta Reports from Sweden on Savannah-Sweden Connections