Biographies

Mr. Gilliland is a partner in the Washington, D.C.-based law and policy consulting firm, Gilliland & McKinney International Counsellors. He has more than twenty years of experience in international trade policy, representing clients on a wide range of matters, including legislation, negotiations, and disputes, with a particular focus on the agriculture and food sectors. He has also advised sovereign clients in numerous economic and foreign policy matters, including treaty negotiations, the creation of new agriculture and trade laws, and human rights.

Before his work in private practice, Mr. Gilliland served as International Trade Counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, where he was responsible for oversight of U.S. international trade matters, including the negotiation of various free trade agreements and the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Doha Development Agenda. He is also a former Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), advising her on all agriculture and trade matters. Prior to joining Senator Lincoln’s staff, he worked in government relations for the U.S. cotton and sugar industries.

Over the course of his career, his work has touched on the negotiation or implementation of more than a dozen U.S. free trade agreements, passage of each of the last four farm bills, the creation of a major agriculture research program, as well as passage of numerous trade-related statutes, including four Miscellaneous Tariff Bills, the extension of presidential trade negotiating authority, and legislation addressing U.S. compliance with WTO rulings. He has helped defend U.S. clients in foreign countervailing and antidumping duty investigations, counseled both domestic and foreign clients in U.S. trade remedy matters, and advised foreign governments in the enactment of WTO-consistent measures.

He is recognized by Who’s Who Legal: Trade & Customs Law (2018) and serves on the adjunct faculty of American University’s Washington College of Law.  He speaks frequently at international trade and public policy conferences and university classrooms in the United States and abroad. 

He received his law degree from the University of Alabama and his undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University. While in law school, he won his school’s moot court competition, and briefs he co-wrote won top prize at the Jessup International Law Moot Court world championships. He also attended the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and the Moscow (Russia) Institute for International Relations. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Georgia.

Mr. McKinney has been active in international trade and investment law and policy for fifteen years.  His practice spans a broad array of trade matters ranging from market access issues involving the World Trade Organization (WTO) to trade remedy litigation (including Antidumping and Countervailing Duty and NAFTA Chapter 19), the U.S. trade embargo with Cuba, to advocacy and consulting on matters before the United States Congress, administrative agencies, and active international trade negotiations. Industries he has represented include beverage alcohol, household appliances, tobacco products, automotive parts, aerospace, lumber, footwear, apparel, agricultural goods, chemicals, and steel, amongst others.  Mr. McKinney’s clients range from Fortune 100 multinational corporations, national industry associations, and sovereigns, to small family businesses concerning issues affecting the U.S., Canadian, Mexican, European, Asian, Caribbean, and South American markets.  He is recognized by Who’s Who Legal Trade & Customs Law (since 2018) and augments his practice by teaching trade and investment law and policy courses and coaching moot court teams at the American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C. and Université Catholique de Lyon in France, amongst other engagements.

During his studies at American University Washington College of Law Mr. McKinney spent substantial time at internships at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (the Office of Services and Investment and the Office of the General Counsel) and at the U.S. Department of Commerce (Office of the Chief Counsel for International Commerce) while occupying several leadership positions at school (including successful Moot Court competitions, Law Review, etc.).  Between undergraduate and law school Mr. McKinney worked at one Brazil-focused boutique consultancy and one top-five consulting firm.  As an undergraduate at the University of Miami, he was the inaugural recipient of the Robert M. Levine Award for Excellence in Latin American Studies for his research on Brazil's investment regime and spent significant time studying in Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Mr. McKinney also studied at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) in Rio de Janeiro. 

With all of his extensive free time, Mr. McKinney is a wine enthusiast and budding wine grape grower (fourth year, second harvest in 2016) and volunteers on campaigns promoting democracy in Eastern and Central Europe.

In 2019 he joined his long-time collaborator and colleague to form Gilliland & McKinney International Counselors LLC, an international trade law and policy consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. and is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Florida.

Reuf Bajrovic is Senior Policy Advisor at Gilliland & McKinney International Counselors LLC (GMI Counsel).  During his twenty-year career, Mr. Bajrovic participated in complex international negotiations with high-level policy-makers and foreign investors in the energy, pharmaceutical, and construction industries.

Mr. Bajrovic served as the Minister of Energy, Industry, and Mining of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, overseeing a portfolio of 27 companies with an annual turnover of $2 billion.  Previously, he founded and managed the Emerging Democracies Institute (EDI), a Washington-based think tank dedicated to supporting the emergence of liberal democracies, just and accountable governments, and sustainable development worldwide by helping pro-democratic leaders and civic activists from post-conflict and post-authoritarian countries to have their voice heard in Washington.  He is presently the Co-Chair of the US-Europe Alliance in Washington, DC.

Mr. Bajrovic has advised private investors, political parties, private foundations, and development agencies in over a dozen countries.  His clients have included the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), European Commission, EU Police Mission, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), UK Department for International Development (DFID), German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), National Democratic Institute (NDI), International Republican Institute (IRI), and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), among others.

Mr. Bajrovic’s op-eds and feature articles have appeared in Tampa Bay Times, El Pais, Die Zeit, and other online and print media in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East.  He is a frequent commentator in English and Bosnian for major international media, including The New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, Newsweek, PBS Newshour, and Al Jazeera English, among others.  His academic and policy research was published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), Open Society Institute, Center for Policy and Governance (CPU), and Heinrich Boll Stiftung. 

Mr. Bajrovic holds an MA in Democracy and Human Rights and an MA in Governance and Policy of European Integration from the University of Bologna. He holds a BA in political science from the University of Louisville.  He is fluent in Bosnian, English, and Turkish.