Patrick Schaefer

About Patrick Schaefer

Patrick Schaefer is a recognized expert in U.S. and international trade, energy, and financial law, with over twenty years of experience in government, academia, and the private sector. Patrick\'s practice has specialized in researching, analyzing, and advising clients on domestic and international energy, financial, and commodity flows across European, Asian, and North American markets. He has regularly provided 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.In addition to serving as an Assistant District Attorney in Santa Fe and Las Cruces, New Mexico, located on the US-Mexico border, Patrick has served as General Counsel of the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration, by appointment of the Governor, where he advised 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.

Experience

1. Administrative Law Judge

   New Mexico Public Regulation Commission

   Jan 2025 — Present · Santa Fe, NM, US

   Manage adjudicatory proceedings, conduct hearings, and develop comprehensive evidentiary records and findings of law when issuing Recommended Decisions for the Commissioners.Preside over diverse and complex types of cases, including rate-setting; certificates to build and acquire generating resources; corporate finance; mergers; sales and acquisitions; declaratory orders; territorial disputes; quality of service; purchased power and gas cost recovery; interconnections; arbitrations; mediations; abandonments of utility plant or service; complaints; permits; and enforcement actions across the major industries regulated by the Commission.

Education

• Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México

  J.D., Law

  2008 — 2008

• The Hague Academy of International Law - Académie de droit international de La Haye

  Certificate, Public International Law, Private International Law

  2010 — 2010

• Universidade Católica Portuguesa

  LL.M. (Advanced), International Trade and Finance Law

  2009 — 2010

• KU Leuven

  BA, Political Philosophy

  2003 — 2004

• St. John's College

  BA, Mathematics and Philosophy

  1996 — 2000

• USP - Universidade de São Paulo

  J.D. (Semester/U.S. Dept Education/CAPES Fellow), Law of Transnational Resource Management

  2009 — 2009

• The University of New Mexico

  MA, Latin American and Iberian History

  2004 — 2005

• The University of New Mexico School of Law

  J.D., Inter-American Financial, Trade, and Natural Resource Law

  2006 — 2009

Skills

• Human Rights
• Arbitration
• Litigation
• Mexican
• Legal Advice
• International Relations
• Policy
• Spanish
• International Arbitration
• International Law
• Legal Research
• French
• Public Policy
• Trading
• Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Intellectual Property
• Civil Litigation
• Public International Law
• Portuguese