Masuda Funai offers a full range of legal services to handle all aspects of establishing and growing our clients' businesses. Each of our practice areas has developed expertise in specialty disciplines, yet our unique structure allows for maximum flexibility in combining different practice areas to address each specific project. Our collaborative approach enables us to provide efficient, integrated services and creative solutions for our clients. Business Distribution & Sales Employment, Labor & Benefits Environmental, Health & Safety Estate Planning & Administration Immigration Intellectual Property & Technology Litigation Real Estate Founded by Thomas Masuda in 1929, Masuda Funai has grown to over 45 attorneys and three offices, located in downtown and suburban Chicago and Los Angeles.
The firm is 37% minority-owned and the professionals in our Midwest and West Coast offices service our more than 1,500 clients, many of which have been represented by the firm for decades. Masuda Funai strives to establish long-term relationships with clients by providing customized legal services in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Our practice was built on representing international companies entering, operating and investing in the United States. Over the past 80 years, we have guided our clients through the complex legal network in the U.S. Whether you're a small corporation locating in the U.S. for the first time, or an established global entity, we have the knowledge, experience and cultural understanding to represent you successfully.
We can assist you with every aspect of your business including: establishing, acquiring, and financing operations; ownership, development and leasing of real estate; transfer of overseas employees to the U.S.; employment, labor, and benefits counseling and dispute resolution; intellectual property, copyright and trademark; business litigation services from simple to complex commercial disputes and bankruptcy secured creditors' rights; structuring the distribution and sale of products and services throughout the U.S.; and estate planning and administration. Our broad client base spans many different industries and technologies.
We represent leading manufacturers and distributors of automotive parts, machine tools, printing presses and electronics. Other clients include financial institutions; transportation and construction companies; professional service organizations; computer and technology companies; and suppliers of food, household and outdoor goods.
Global Resources Masuda Funai is unique among U.S.-based law firms in providing focused legal services customized for global companies with critical business needs in the U.S., such as establishing a U.S. company, negotiating U.S. contracts, managing U.S. employees, and asserting or defending a company's rights in the U.S. The following is a representative sample of the essential cross-border services we provide. Many of our attorneys and staff have international backgrounds and have lived, studied or worked abroad. A number of our attorneys have spent several months abroad, working as in-house counsel for some of our international clients, and several attorneys travel frequently throughout the world to work on various projects and cases.
We speak a variety of languages, including Armenian, Croatian, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian. Since 1989, Masuda Funai has had a Visiting Foreign Attorney Program, where an attorney licensed to practice law in Japan (bengoshi) will intern with the firm for a one to two-year period. Many of these visiting attorneys have gone on to pass the New York State Bar Exam while interning with Masuda Funai. This program has facilitated an important sharing of information and insight and has been of great benefit to the firm and our clients, as well as to the visiting attorneys.
We also maintain a network of global contacts in the legal, business, accounting and consulting fields to assist us in representing our clients in other countries. And, Masuda Funai has been a member of the International Network of Boutique Law Firms (INBLF) since 2006. The INBLF is an organization of highly credentialed law firms, located throughout the world, each of which has been identified and hand-selected as preeminent in each firm's respective field of practice.