Patrick Schaefer is a recognized expert in U.S. and international trade and financial law, with over twenty years of experience in government, academia, and the private sector. Patrick's practice specializes in researching, analyzing, and advising clients on domestic and international financial transactions and financial, commodity, and criminal enterprise flows across European, Asian, and North American markets. He regularly provides briefings, trainings, and seminars locally, nationally, and internationally for organizations such as the Department of Homeland Security, Joint Task Force-North, the Aspen Institute, Aspen Institute-Mexico, Aspen Institute-Italia, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Pacific Council on International Policy, the Texas Lyceum, the New Mexico State Bar, the Navajo Nation Bar Association, the Texas and New Mexico State Legislature, the New Mexico Office the Governor, among many other diverse local, state, and international institutions.Having served as an Assistant District Attorney in Santa Fe and Las Cruces, New Mexico, located on the US-Mexico border, Patrick currently serves as General Counsel of the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration, by appointment of the Governor. There, he advises on statewide financial transactions, debt financing, federal grants, financial control, and state agency and local government administration. Previously appointed as General Counsel of the New Mexico Department of Regulation and Licensing, he oversaw the regulation of the state's financial, securities, construction, and alcohol industries while also managing the opening of the new cannabis market. Prior these appointments, Patrick was the founding Executive Director of the Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness, a pioneering research platform located at the University of Texas at El Paso that produced unique detailed economic and legal analysis of the various cross-border market dynamics and law enforcement mechanisms that converge along the US-Mexico border. The Institute provides an open harmonized platform of regional databases, strategic sector analysis, comprehensive GIS sector mapping, and economic impact modeling.As the Senior Vice President of the Center for Global Trade and Foreign Investment at Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, he led the international trade and investment strategy. At the World Bank Group and the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., he advised client-states in Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America on financial sector and insolvency reforms.