International arbitration partner Richard Menard of South Korea's largest firm, Kim & Chang, has died.

Menard died of a septic infection on Wednesday, the firm confirmed. He was 47.

"Richard was a beloved colleague at Kim & Chang who will be dearly missed," a spokesperson for the firm said in an email. He is survived by his wife, Melissa, and two teenage sons, Henry and Max.

A commercial arbitration specialist, Menard has represented Korean manufacturing companies in cases in Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul, London, Paris, Zurich, Toronto and Houston. He was a member of the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board's panel of arbitrators.

Menard moved to Seoul in 2010 to join Kim & Chang. Previously, he was an associate at Sidley Austin's Washington, D.C., office where he practised for eight years, shortly after earning a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center in 2001.

"Richard was one of the (many) people in the arbitration community who made me [feel welcomed] when I moved to Seoul," Mark Goodrich, a London-based construction and arbitration partner at White & Case who was previously based in Seoul since 2015, said in a social media post. "RIP."