Track Record
Our representative placements include:
Practice Teams & Mergers
1) Wilson Sonsini’s entire Venture Fund Group, headed by Jonathan Axelrad and including partners Robert Fore and Gerald Chacon, Jr. into Goodwin Procter’s Palo Alto office. Regarded as one of the premiere practice group of its kind in the U.S., these preeminent lawyers in the area of venture capital/private equity fund formation and fund services, who collectively have over 40 years experience representing venture capital, buy-out and other types of private funds, led the venture capital/private equity fund practice at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. These placements reflect Goodwin Procter’s commitment to make its fund services practice best-in-class.
2) Patent Litigation partners Byron Cooper, Gregory Bishop, April Abele and Thomas Fitzpatrick, formerly of Townsend and Townsend and Crew, into Goodwin Procter to open the firm’s Silicon Valley office. Byron W. Cooper focuses his practice on protecting the technology required to achieve his clients’ business goals. In addition to patent litigation in federal district courts across the country and before the U.S. International Trade Commission, he counsels a wide range of clients regarding licensing, patent prosecution and patent portfolios, and provides opinions regarding infringement and the validity of patents. Gregory S. Bishop specializes in patent litigation, particularly matters involving computers, electronics, semiconductors and software. He is experienced in cases brought before the International Trade Commission as well as in federal district court. April E. Abele focuses on patent litigation. She has handled numerous patent infringement lawsuits in district courts nationally and before the U.S. International Trade Commission. Abele has represented clients on patent cases involving life sciences, medical devices, e-commerce, semiconductor and software design, among others. Thomas F. Fitzpatrick focuses his practice on intellectual property trials, including litigating patent, trade secret, trademark, copyright, technology licensing and other related disputes. Fitzpatrick has successfully represented clients in industries ranging from computer architecture and software, to wireless communications and consumer goods.
3) A six-attorney Land Use & Environmental practice group, headed by partners Judy Davidoff and Art Friedman, formerly of Steefel Levitt into the San Francisco office of Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton. Ms. Davidoff’s practice emphasizes land use, environmental and development law, while Mr. Friedman specializes in litigating real estate, land use and various commercial matters. The group includes associate attorneys William Fleishhacker, Miriam Montesinos, Alexis Pelosi and Elizabeth Sibbett.
4) The placement of Jonathan McGahren and Stephanie Feingold, Environmental partners with Patton Boggs Newark, NJ office into the Princeton, NJ office of Morgan Lewis. Mr. McGahren also served as Managing Partner of Patton Boggs’s Newark, NJ office. Mr. McGahren focuses his practice on a variety of environmental litigation enforcement and compliance matters. He frequently represents clients on commercial litigation, products liability, toxic tort, and government contract claims, and counsels clients on both federal and state regulatory matters. Ms. Feingold counsels clients in connection with investigations and enforcement actions by environmental and government agencies and has represents major corporations, insurers and reinsurers in litigation, mediation and arbitration.
5) Allan Van Fleet, one of the nation’s leading Antitrust attorneys, and associate Nicholas G. Grimmer, from Greenberg Traurig into McDermott Will & Emery’s Antitrust & Competition Practice Group in Houston, TX. Mr. Van Fleet is a Past Chair of the American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law and is recognized both nationally and internationally as a preeminent antitrust lawyer and litigator.
6) The Louderback Law Firm (an 11-attorney firm specializing in Employment & Commercial Litigation), in its merger with the Irvine-based law firm of Payne & Fears to open its San Francisco office. The Louderback Law firm attorneys have extensive trial experience in wrongful termination, breach of contract, retaliation, harassment, discrimination based on race, age, national origin, religion, and gender, wage and hour violations, all forms of business torts, contract actions, fraud, unfair competition, and unlawful conversion of intellectual property matters.
Individual Partner Placements
1) Jan Handzlik – a White Collar & Government Investigations partner from Howrey into Los Angeles, CA office of Greenberg Traurig to head the firm’s West Coast White Collar Practice Group. Mr. Handzlik is one of the country's preeminent white collar defense attorneys, with over 100 jury trials to verdict, and formerly chaired the ABA's White Collar Crime Committee. Notable assignments include serving as Counsel to the Independent Warren Christopher Commission and Deputy General Counsel to the Independent William Webster Commission in investigations of the Los Angeles Police Department.
2) Dominique Shelton – a Technology, Privacy & IP Litigation partner from Foley Lardner into Kaye Scholer’s Los Angeles, CA office. Ms. Shelton focuses on complex commercial litigation with particular experience in the areas of entertainment, unfair competition, intellectual property, and antitrust. She is a former President of the Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles (WLALA), the oldest and one of the largest local women's bar associations in the country, and a Life Member of Black Women Lawyers Association of Los Angeles (BWL).
3) Timothy Pierce, a Construction Litigation partner into the Los Angeles office of K&L Gates, to lead the firm’s West Coast Construction practice. Mr. Pierce focuses his practice on all legal aspects of the construction industry including contract formation, the prosecution and defense of construction contract claims - including ADA Title III public access claims - on behalf of owners, contractors and subcontractors for both private and public projects. Pierce also advises clients on insurance law issues, with special emphasis on coverage for underlying construction, intellectual property and environmental claims.
4) Craig Menden – a Venture Technology partner from Fenwick & West into the Palo Alto, CA office of Dentons. Mr. Menden's practice focuses primarily on complex mergers and acquisitions. In addition to his M&A practice, he has extensive experience in venture capital financings and related corporate and securities transactions. Since coming to Silicon Valley from New York in 1998, his practice has been concentrated on the representation of technology companies, including software, Internet, networking, computer hardware, pharmaceutical and medical device companies.
5) Scott Kline – the first corporate transactional partner hired in Dentons’s Dallas, TX office. Formerly a partner with Andrews Kurth, Mr. Kline is an Intellectual Property and Corporate attorney who has served as legal counsel to the world’s largest airline, the world’s number one retailer, and world's leading maker of wireless telecom infrastructure equipment. In addition to his legal experience, Kline has worked with venture capital firms and technology companies as both a high-level executive and advisor. He has extensive experience in the areas of technology law, Internet and e-commerce, as well as business strategy and advising.
6) John Funk – an Outsourcing and Technology partner from Morgan Lewis into the Dallas, TX office of Dentons. His practice focuses on outsourcing, representing a wide variety of clients in complex information technology and business process outsourcing transactions, many of which have been multi-jurisdictional in scope. His practice also includes other technology-related transactions, such as software licensing, software development, systems integrations, and other technology-related services.
7) Carol Lucas, a Health Care of counsel from Fullbright & Jaworski, into the Los Angeles office of Buchalter, Nemer, Fields & Younger, as a partner. Chair of the Firm’s Health Care Practice Group, Ms. Lucas focuses her practice on healthcare law and general business law. She has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, securities, private placements, state and federal regulations, entity formation and corporate representation of both public and private companies in the healthcare industry.
8) Ira Kotel – a Venture Technology partner from Dickstein Shapiro into the New York, NY & Short Hills, NJ offices of Dentons. His practice encompasses all major transactional areas, including mergers and acquisitions, public and private securities offerings, venture capital transactions, joint ventures and strategic alliances, technology licensing, structured and project finance, general contract negotiation, and general corporate advice. Ira has extensive experience representing a wide variety of issuers, placement agents, underwriters and investors in numerous private placement and public offering transactions. He also has represented major investment banking firms and corporations in connection with mergers and acquisitions. In addition to preparing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and NASDAQ Stock Market filings and listing applications, he often is engaged in addressing significant issues with SEC and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) regulators and representatives of the NYSE, NASDAQ and AMEX.
9) William Walker, a litigation partner formerly of Coudert Brothers specializing in Commercial Litigation, into the Los Angeles office of Greenberg Glusker. Mr. Walker represents domestic and overseas corporations in all aspects of business and commercial litigation, including in California state and U.S. federal courts and in domestic and international arbitrations. He has also assisted and coordinated the successful prosecution and defense of lawsuits in Germany and Greater China, and has substantial experience in large disputes proceeding concurrently in U.S. and foreign courts.