Lloyd Richardson | About the Author

Lloyd Richardson writes with a single purpose: to bridge the foreign policy communication gap between Washington bureaucrats and the rest of America. This gap is roughly the width of the Grand Canyon, so the rest of America will have to be patient. Lloyd’s first love is history, and he believes that a lack of historical understanding is America’s foremost weakness as a great nation. It translates directly into misguided foreign policy. Many practitioners of foreign policy – this mystic art – are themselves misguided, often with no feeling for the Americans they represent.

Lloyd writes for the curious general reader who lacks the time to become a foreign policy expert, but who wishes to stay informed about international matters in these troubled times. Lloyd is a political conservative, and while this fact informs his analysis, he thinks that lucidity and wry humor also have their place in the discussion of foreign policy topics. He seeks the engaged reader who is weary of confusion and doublespeak.

A diplomat during the Reagan years, Lloyd brings three decades of experience in international law, government and business to his analysis of places beyond our borders, and the United States today. He is fluent in Chinese, and has held diplomatic posts in Asia and at the State Department, where his last assignment was as staff assistant to the director of Policy Planning for Secretary of State George Shultz.

Lloyd has previously written on foreign policy for Policy Review. He lived in Taiwan for some years (both on his own and with the U.S. Government) and has traveled extensively in Asia and other foreign places that are not half as much fun (Vermont comes to mind). During his active-duty years in the Foreign Service (1980-1986), Lloyd was a Chinese language officer, and he received both White House recognition and the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award for his contributions. His specific assignments were:

Staff Assistant to Director, Secretary's Policy Planning Staff (30,000 feet and climbing)
Desk Officer for Taiwan - Arms sales; trade policy (the right stuff)
Logistics Officer, Williamsburg Economic Summit (the 1983 “G8” meeting-Ron roughs up the Eurotrash and Japan’s trade pirates)
Consular Officer, Taipei (Lloyd covers Chen Wen-ch’eng’s murder and autopsy, and issues about 4 million nonimmigrant visas to people who are now happily settled in LA)

Lloyd currently practices law in the D.C. area with McGuireWoods LLP, a 750-lawyer firm, with offices in New York, Chicago and throughout the Southeastern United States, as well as Brussels and Almaty (Kazakhstan). His law practice has taken him back to places like India, Taiwan, and China. In China, he has worked with the Chinese Government airlines and has represented a biotech start-up based in south China in joint development agreements and equity funding issues in the U.S. He has also has worked on joint ventures for clients based in these regions.

He lives with his family in McLean, Virginia, which family includes a wife, a mother, two very disparate sons, and the two smartest Manx cats in the world. Lloyd constantly seeks opportunities to travel. He is ashamed only to have missed Vietnam (draft lottery number 86) and now Iraq. He often wonders aloud why every lawyer who believes in pro bono work (and there are so many of you, aren’t there) isn’t volunteering for a stint with the CPA, to advise the emerging Iraqi government. Immersed as he is in the “busy years,” Lloyd’s only hobbies are cooking and eating (that is really a single sport) and landscaping/gardening.

About the Author | Curriculum Vitae | Publications

email: lr@lloydrichardson.com