Presently, Ms. Sicard-Mirabal is an independent arbitrator and adjunct professor of law.
Ms. Sicard-Mirabal’s legal career began as a judge in the Dominican Republic where she rendered a vast array of decisions on commercial, civil, and labor matters. She continued her legal practice in the United States, first as an associate at the law firm of Thelen, Reid & Priest (1989-1999) and then as a Of Counsel at Winston & Strawn (1999-2002) and Greenberg Traurig (2004-2006). Because of her language abilities and civil law and common law background, her practice focused on international business transactions as well as international litigation and dispute resolution.
From 2006-2015, Ms. Sicard-Mirabal was the Executive Director (formerly, Regional Director) of Arbitration and ADR for North America for the ICC International Court of Arbitration/SICANA, Inc. During the same period, she served as Director of Dispute Resolution Services of the United States Council for International Business (USCIB) – ICC-USA.
Since 2010 to present, Josefa is an adjunct professor of law at Fordham University School of Law in New York City. She teaches International Business Transactions since 2017, International Arbitration Practicum for LLM students since 2019, and Introduction to Investor-State Arbitration from 2010-2016. She has been a guest lecturer on international commercial and investment arbitration at several law schools including, Harvard University, Columbia University, Boston University, Northwestern University, the Law School at the Università degli Studi di Firenze, and La Sapienza – Università di Roma, Italy, and the Universidad de Montevideo, Uruguay, among others.
From 2011 to 2020, she served as an External Member of the Sanctions Committee of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (anti-corruption tribunal). The Sanctions Committee is the second-tier of the IDB Sanctions System. The Committee reviews and makes final decisions on cases concerning fraud and other Bank- prohibited practices committed by beneficiaries of IDB Bank loans for IDB-sponsored projects.
Ms. Sicard-Mirabal is a dual-qualified lawyer in New York State and the Dominican Republic. She received a law degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra, Santiago, Dominican Republic. She continued her legal studies at Fordham University School of Law in New York. She is admitted to the New York State bar and the Dominican Republic bar. She speaks English, French, Spanish; has working knowledge of Italian and Portuguese and basic Turkish.