Blake T. Franklin, a partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, joined the firm in 1983. Mr. Franklin has extensive experience in project finance; restructuring of debt obligations; cross-border mergers and acquisitions in Latin America; negotiation and reformation of government concession and privatization agreements; and corporate and financial transactions related to power generation, water management, pipeline construction and mining.

Mr. Franklin also represents clients in the negotiation and documentation of private and multilateral agency credits for both projects and program implementation. He has represented sovereign borrowers in the renegotiation of their foreign debt and has acted both as counsel and as arbitrator in ICC and AAA arbitrations in Mexico City, Madrid, Paris and New York.

Mr. Franklin graduated from Harvard Law School in 1966. Prior to joining Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, he taught law in Costa Rica as a visiting professor through the U.S. Peace Corps. In 1969, he joined a major law firm and was a partner of that firm in New York and Washington, D.C.

A member of the ABA and the New York, California and District of Columbia bars, Mr. Franklin has served on the boards of directors of several Latin American companies. He is also a member of the American Society of International Law and the Inter-American Bar Association. He has acted as counsel to state-owned enterprises and banks in Bolivia, Peru and Venezuela. Mr. Franklin has lectured at legal and business programs in New York, Europe and Mexico on doing business in Latin America, and is a director of the National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade in Tucson. Recently, Mr. Franklin was named one of the world's leading lawyers in the 2008 edition of Euromoney's Guide to the World's Leading Project Lawyers.