Sophie Tabatadze
Sophie Tabatadze works for the LEPL National Food Agency of the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia, at the European Harmonization Division. Her duty at work covers the analyses of relevant EU legislation in relation with Georgian Legislation regarding the Food Safety, Veterinary and Plant Protection;
She compares them, revise the existing Georgian Laws and draft the new ones. She with her team has adopted the EU Approximation Program, which enables country to step by step harmonize the national legislation with the European. Team has drafted the new Food Safety Code in cooperation with the EU experts working under EU Commission CIB and Sida projects.
She also is a member of the "Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement" Working Group and member of "EU Approximation Program" established by the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia.
Nino Giorgidze
Ms. Giorgidze works as a lawyer at a constructional company “Sonnet Construction” LLC and a retail management company – “Adress” LLC.
During her 8-year uninterrupted professional experience, Nino had worked at a governmental sector as well as at non-governmental organization.
During 2007-2010 years she had been appointed as a legal consultant of the Administrative Department at the Ministry of Finance of Georgia.Nino also values the opportunity to work on non-academic issues that affect the community and managed broadening her contacts beyond Georgia. For the 12 years spent as a leader, later elected on a position of Human Rights Commissioner of Girls Scouts Association of Georgia, she has learnt an importance and value of volunteering, informal education and community work.
Ms. Giorgidze holds a higher education diploma with honors from Georgian Technical University of the faculty of Humanities Technical, qualification of Lawyer in Jurisprudence with 5 year educational program.
Constantine Janjghava
Constantine Janjghava holds Bachelor’s degree in English Philology from the Tbilisi State University and a Master's degree (LL.M) in Private Law from Caucasus University, Caucasus School of Law. He has also successfully passed General Course on Intellectual Property – a distance-learning program at WIPO worldwide academy.
At various years he has held different positions as a lawyer specializing in Private, Insurance, Copyright and Administrative Laws. As philologist he has also editorial experience in creating English-Georgian Dictionary. Currently he works as a lawyer and projects coordinator at ‘IDFI’, a civil society organization specializing on issues of Freedom of Information.
He is also the member of the Georgian Bar Association and author of several publications on issues of Freedom of Information in Georgia.
Mary Japaridze
Mary holds the position of a lawyer at a joint stock company, which operates shopping mall Tbilisi Central. She also provides legal counseling to different private companies on a regular basis.
Prior to the current position, Mary has been employed as an attorney at Kordzadze Law Office and NGO Article 42 of the Constitution, where she has gained substantial experience in litigation, both in Georgian courts and also in the European Court of Human Rights.
Mary holds BA degree from the Tbilisi State University and LLM degree from the University of Georgia.
Zurab Melkadze
Mr. Melkadze is General Counsel at L.E.P.L. Georgian National Investment Agency, with more than 8 years of continuous professional experience in Banking and Insurance Law, Corporate and Investment Law, Cross-border Transactions and Commercial Contract Negotiations.
During this period Zurab worked as a Legal Associate at UBC International LLC, Senior Legal Counsel and Deputy Head of Legal Department at Bank Republic, Societe Generale Group.
Mr. Melkadze holds International Law degree from Tbilisi State University and Masters Degree in Public Administration from Georgian Institute of Public Affairs (GIPA). Mr. Melkadze was involved in additional studies of American legal system and English legal writing skills; Zurab has successfully passed Georgian Bar Association exams.
Valerian Davitaia
Mr. Valerian Davitaia holds the position of the Executive Director of the Law Office “Gabunia and Partners”, which is one of the dominant players in Georgian market of legal services. As G&P mostly deals with some of the biggest companies operating in Georgia, Valerian has to deal with legal issues of complicated business transactions.
He has a great experience of providing legal assistance to clients in varied fields like contract law, corporate law, tax law, property law, etc. During four years of his professional career Valerian represented individuals, private entities, different types of companies and non-governmental organizations as an Attorney at Law in the courts of Georgia and in communication with other governmental bodies.
Although, Mostly his professional activities are oriented on local segment, he also has the experience of dealing with foreigners providing assistance about the immigration issues as well as providing memorandums and due diligences to foreign entities and individuals.
Valerian Davitaia holds a Diploma of the Certified Specialist in Law from Tbilisi State University. He is member of Georgian Bar Association since 2009. He also holds the Certificate of Business Accountant from Chartered Institute of Management Accounting (CIMA) since 2008. Due to his will to widen his professional knowledge, he addressed Chicago-Kent College of Law for the LL.M. Program in International and Comparative Law.
Lusine Bakumyan
Lusine Bakumyan holds a position of Chairperson and Integrity Officer at the FFA Dispute Resolution Chamber (DRC). She is a member of the Qualification Committee of the Chamber of Advocates of Republic of Armenia.
Since 2004, holds a position of Head at the FFA Legal & HR department. Since 2000, Lusine is a Member of the Chamber of Advocates of Republic of Armenia. Her specialization is to represent and protect interests of citizens and organizations in all levels of civil and administrative procedure (Pre-trial, First Instance, Appeal and Cassation Courts.
Grigori Poghosyan
Grigori Poghosyan is a Ph.D lawyer with uninteraped professional practice in legal field. Since 2012 he works for as an Advisor of Deputy Head of Police of Republic of Armenia.
From he same period he is a member of Chamber of Advocates of the Republic of Armenia.
Rashad Yusifov
Rashad Yusifov is an Attorney at law, Member of Bar Association of Republic of Azerbaijan and Head of Legal Department of Vision Fund Azercredit LLC (VisionFund International Affiliate)
Rashad Yusifov is a graduate of Azerbaijan National Aviation Academy and holds Specialist degree in Law. Right after the graduating in 2006 Rashad took the position of lawyer with one of the leading banks of Azerbaijan, “UniBank” CB.
Rashad’s academic and professional interests focus on Banking and Finance law, Corporate and Investment Law, Employment Law, Constitutional Law. His area of expertise also comprises Real Estate and Criminal law.
Maia Mtchedlishvili
Ms. Mtchedlishvili works as a chief expert (lawyer) at Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Protection of Georgia. Prior to that position, Maia worked at Open Diplomacy Association as a legal adviser.
Different periods of times she has been employed at NGO Article 42 of the Constitution, Georgian Technical University, Georgia Red Cross Society. She provided legal counseling to different private companies and individuals too. Maia holds LLB degree from Caucasus University (Caucasus School of law); She is in the process of getting Master degree – in Public Administration from Georgian Technical University and Master in Journalism, Media Research and Public Relations from Ilia State University.