President of the United States Barack Obama has nominated Shanghai-based attorney David Huebner to serve as the next US ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. Mr. Huebner is a partner in the Shanghai office of US law firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, where he specializes in international arbitration and mediation as head of the firm's China Practice and International Disputes Practice. A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, he has taught at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law and lectured both at Qinghua University and at East China University of Politics and Law on international dispute resolution and intellectual property issues. An accomplished legal scholar, Mr. Huebner has published and spoken widely in the US, Asia, and Europe on international dispute resolution topics, and has been named on numerous best practitioners lists, including IP Almanac (Best Lawyers), Super Lawyers, and Best Lawyers in America. He has also chaired the California Law Revision Commission, served as president of the Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission, and served in Tokyo as special assistant to the Honorable Koji Kakizawa, member of the lower house of the Japanese Diet and former Foreign Minister of Japan. President Obama's first openly gay ambassadorial nominee, Mr. Huebner is also the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's general counsel and has previously served on the group's board. If confirmed by the US Senate, Mr. Huebner will bring a wealth of global experience and legal scholarship to his new post as US ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.