2019 Faculty
(speaker names linked to full professional biography on firm/company web site)
Keynote Speaker
Partner
Maureen K. Ohlhausen led the Federal Trade Commission as Acting Chairman and Commissioner, where she directed all aspects of the FTC's antitrust work, including merger review and conduct enforcement, and steered all FTC consumer protection enforcement, with a particular emphasis on privacy and technology issues. Prior to her role as Commissioner, Ms. Ohlhausen led the FTC's Internet Access Task Force, which produced an influential report analyzing competition and consumer protection legal issues in the areas of broadband and Internet. Upon leaving the FTC, Ms. Ohlhausen joined Baker Botts LLP as a partner in the Washington, D.C. office, where she serves as Chair of the Antitrust & Competition Law Practice Group. A thought leader, Ms. Ohlhausen has published dozens of articles on antitrust, privacy, IP, regulation, FTC litigation, telecommunications, and international law issues in prestigious publications and has testified over a dozen times before the U.S. Congress. Ms. Ohlhausen has relationships with officials in the U.S. and abroad, with a particular emphasis on Europe and China, and has led the U.S. delegation at international antitrust and data privacy meetings on many occasions. She has received numerous awards, including the FTC's Robert Pitofsky Lifetime Achievement Award. Ms. Ohlhausen clerked at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Presenters
 | Partner Nick Aries is a partner and co-head of Osborne Clarke's office in San Francisco. He advises on and coordinates European and UK IP law matters, as well as connecting US clients with Bird & Bird's European, Middle East and Asia-Pacific legal experts in all practice areas. Mr. Aries is adept at advising on the IP issues in the digital economy, including copyright and trade mark questions raised by online services and social media. He also advises on coordinating multi-jurisdictional IP litigation and strategy. Alongside this disputes and advisory work, Mr. Aries' practice covers transactional IP work such as licensing (particularly, trademark licensing arrangements), and advice on the IP aspects of large scale corporate restructures and reorganizations. |
 | Partner Harper Batts is a partner in the Intellectual Property Practice Group in Sheppard Mullin's Silicon Valley office. Numerous Fortune 50 clients have relied upon his experience to represent them in highly contentious patent litigation disputes in many different venues, including Texas, Delaware, California, New Jersey, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and the Federal Circuit. His experience includes leading several large joint defense groups in complex cases involving numerous patents and accused product lines. Mr. Batts has represented patent challengers and patent owners in more than 35 CBM and IPR proceedings. He has extensive experience in cases before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. He is experienced in numerous technology areas, including semiconductors, computer software, e-commerce, wireless technology, telecommunications, medical devices and hardware technology. |
 | Partner Chris Carr is a partner in the San Francisco office of Baker Botts. Drawing from his experience with the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of State, Mr. Carr represents businesses, land developers, private individuals, public agencies, and nonprofits in all areas of environmental and natural resource law, including energy, transportation, water, forestry, mining, coastal and marine resources, and agriculture. In particular, Mr. Carr's practice focuses on permitting and litigation under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Clean Water Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), as well as their California counterparts: the California ESA, the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). He is experienced in local, state, federal, and international laws, regulations, initiatives, and programs to promote the development of clean energy. |
 | Of Counsel Francisco Castro is resident in Arent Fox's San Francisco office where his practice is focused on strategic patent counseling, including both domestic and international portfolio development. Dr. Castro has extensive experience assisting clients in the areas of multimedia technologies, wireless systems and devices, software, semiconductors, nanotechnology, photonics, and medical devices. In addition, Dr. Castro helps companies establish processes to effectively identify and manage intellectual property assets. He is also co-leader of the firm's Emerging Companies Practice Group, where he helps guide startup and small companies on patent and other intellectual property matters. Prior to practicing law, Dr. Castro was a Principal Staff Research Engineer at Motorola Labs' DigitalDNA Systems Architecture Laboratory and a member of the technical staff at Lucent Technologies. |
 | Partner Jina Choi is a partner in Morrison's Securities Litigation, Enforcement, and White-Collar Defense Group - a role she is uniquely qualified for as a 16-year veteran of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Her tenure culminated in serving as the Regional Director of the San Francisco Regional Office of the SEC. As the head of the SEC's San Francisco office starting in 2013, Ms. Choi brought a succession of headline-making enforcement actions. Under her leadership, the agency's San Francisco regional staff of attorneys and compliance professionals established important precedents that, according to SEC Chairman Jay Clayton, the SEC "will continue to follow in the years ahead."
In addition to her time at the SEC, Ms. Choi's government experience includes serving as an Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) in the Northern District of Texas and as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, |
 | Partner Scott Cunningham is a partner in the San Francisco office of Covington, and a member of the firm's Food and Drug practice group. He represents pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies as well as trade associations in matters before the FDA, Congress, state and federal courts, and other regulatory and enforcement agencies. Mr. Cunningham has significant experience in areas including new product development and clinical trials; IRBs; new product approvals; Hatch-Waxman exclusivities and product life-cycle management; advertising and promotion; False Claims Act and Anti-Kickback compliance issues and pharmaceutical investigations; Orphan Drug; pediatric exclusivity; manufacturing and cGMPs; import/export; controlled substances; SEC disclosure; and other aspects of federal and state regulation of pharmaceuticals, biologics, and medical devices.
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 | Partner John Davidson-Kelly is a UK Partner in Osborne Clarke's commercial team with particular expertise in the digital media and technology sector. He specializes in commercial contracts and in providing regulatory advice on intellectual property rights, consumer law and broadcasting regulation, which often involves coordinating multi-jurisdictional compliance exercises. He is also an expert in the EU Commission's Digital Single Market initiative. Mr. Davidson-Kelly has unrivaled experience in setting up digital platforms, products and services, advising on all legal issues relating to launch and beyond. He also has extensive experience in setting up and advising all types of digital platforms, from online marketplaces, to music streaming platforms to content aggregators.
Mr. Davidson-Kelly is an expert in rights and content licensing, technology agreements and partnering agreements. Prior to joining Osborne Clarke, he spent 2 years as an in house lawyer at YouView as Head of Legal, which he joined as an unincorporated start-up and saw through to the launch of its hybrid DTT/IPTV platform. |
 | Special Counsel Navi Dhillon focuses on complex civil litigation, and controversial regulatory matters. He is a trusted advisor to clients across diverse industries including energy, hedge funds, private equity, wine, mining, timber, infrastructure, agriculture and technology. His representations have involved a variety of sensitive business concerns, from securities, corporate governance, land use, and water pollution, to class actions, fraud, and unfair competition. Mr. Dhillon is a go-to lawyer for clients seeking to develop utility-scale energy and infrastructure projects. His energy and infrastructure work has included receiving approvals for or developing a 300MW battery energy storage system (BESS), a 250MW photovoltaic system, a complex off-shore wind project, and an ocean desalination facility. |
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 | Partner Charles (Chuck) Duross serves as co-chair of Morrison's Investigations and White Collar Defense Practice Group and is a co-leader of the FCPA and Global Anti-Corruption practice. He is resident in the firm's Washington, D.C. office. With more than twenty-two years of experience principally focused on white-collar cases, Mr. Duross's practice has an emphasis on complex white-collar criminal matters, including internal corporate investigations, representing special committees, compliance counseling, due diligence regarding third parties and business transactions, and defense of clients before government enforcement agencies, and multilateral investment banks. Mr. Duross has handled cases and overseen investigations in dozens of countries. He previously served as a Deputy Chief in the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), where he led the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) Unit and was in charge of all of the DOJ's FCPA investigations, prosecutions and resolutions in the United States. |
 | Partner Konni Ewald is a Partner and Head of Tech, Media and Comms at Osborne Clarke, Germany. He advises leaders in the digital media and software industry throughout Europe and the US on all matters of digital media and IT law as well as IP/technology-related transactions. Mr. Ewald's practice focuses on advising on technology related matters with a particular emphasis on SaaS and PaaS cloud deployment models, complex software implementation and licensing projects, distribution agreements and white labelling strategies that safeguard IP.
He is a specialist in E- and M-commerce law, as well as data protection issues. A large part of his practice is working with clients in the digital media/video game/mobile sector. Mr. Ewald regularly acts for major computer and mobile games developers and publishers as well as other rights owners who are licensing rights for use in interactive software products. He has published the first legal handbook on mobile apps and is editor-in-chief of Germany's leading blog about legal aspects of games www.onlinegameslaw.com. |
 | Partner Jamillia Ferris is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she is a member of the antitrust practice. She regularly appears before the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission, representing companies in government antitrust investigations, including mergers and acquisitions and other civil antitrust matters. Ms. Ferris also provides antitrust counseling on a wide range of business conduct, including joint ventures and pricing and distribution, among others. She served in leadership positions and has overseen mergers at both the Antitrust Division of the DOJ and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). She was hired in 2014 to lead the FCC's review of AT&T's proposed $49 billion acquisition of DIRECTV. In this role, she directed all aspects of the FCC process, including coordination with the DOJ. |
 | Partner Jennifer Fitchen is the global co-leader of Sidley's mergers and acquisitions practice. She is also the former chair of the ABA's Acquisitions of Public Companies Subcommittee. Ms. Fitchen counsels public and private companies on both friendly and hostile acquisition transactions, divestitures and spin-outs, mergers-of-equals, going-private transactions, deals involving earnouts and contingent value rights, and complex structures such as inversion, double-dummy and reverse morris trust transactions. Her experience includes transactions that are truly one-of-a-kind. She has handled hundreds of transactions involving in excess of $230 billion in value. Ms. Fitchen lectures around the country on M&A-related matters, including at events hosted by Stanford University, the American Bar Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel, Practicing Law Institute and other professional organizations. |
 | Partner Katherine Forster is a partner in the employment department at Munger, Tolles. In addition to having litigated scores of wage/hour and discrimination class actions as well as collective and representative actions, Ms. Forster has particular expertise in helping companies navigate highly sensitive claims for sexual harassment, gender discrimination and pay equity. Her litigation experience includes whistleblower retaliation claims, executive compensation matters, trade secrets disputes, constitutional issues and claims arising under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, as well as federal and state employment laws. Ms. Forster also handles internal investigations and provides strategic labor law compliance advice to employers and management. She has extensive experience in the entertainment and media, technology, retail, food and beverage distribution, financial services, communications and nonprofit sectors. |
 | Associate Brandon Ge is resident in Crowell & Moring's Washington, D.C. office, where he is a member of the firm's Privacy & Cybersecurity and Health Care groups.
Mr. Ge advises clients on a wide range of privacy and cybersecurity laws, regulations, and standards. His practice has a particular focus on advising clients - from start-up digital health companies to large health plans - on all aspects of compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Mr. Ge also counsels clients on a variety of other privacy and cybersecurity issues, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), and 42 CFR Part 2. He also frequently works with companies across a variety of industries to incorporate privacy and security by design based on guidance from the FTC, state attorneys general, and NIST. |
 | Partner Beth George is a partner in the San Francisco office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she represents companies in complex cybersecurity and data security matters. Her practice includes advising boards on cybersecurity governance and preparing companies for security incidents. Previously, Ms. George served as Deputy General Counsel to the U.S. Department of Defense, where she advised senior leadership on legislative, policy, and oversight matters. From 2011 to 2016, Ms. George served in various roles for the National Security Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). On detail from the DOJ from 2015 to 2016, Ms. George served in the White House as Associate Counsel in the Office of the White House Counsel, where she provided legal and strategic advice to senior White House officials. She also led responses for the office on cybersecurity and national security matters, including the response to the largest U.S. government data breach at the Office of Personnel Management. |
 | Partner John Gibson is a partner in Crowell & Moring's Litigation & Trial Department in its Orange County office and he serves on the firm's Management Board, as co-chair of the Diversity Council, and as chair of the 3D Printing Digital Transformation Working Group. A save-the-company trial lawyer, litigator, and thought leader with 30 years of experience, he succeeds in crisis situations for clients ranging from top technology and healthcare companies to professional sports teams and underrepresented pro bono clients. Mr. Gibson has an impressive track record of connecting with judges, juries, and arbitrators and has won a long list of headline-generating major cases for Fortune 500 and top international companies. A former software engineer who did coursework in organic chemistry, physics, and biology at Harvard, he also partners with clients to help them create - and protect themselves within - digital transformation ecosystems, including 3D printing. |
 | Partner Vanina Guerrero has advised companies, management teams and investors on IPOs, Rule 144A/Reg S securities offerings, regulatory compliance, strategic investments, offerings of equity, convertible notes and debt securities, mergers and acquisitions, and crisis management in a variety of industries, most notably: Internet and Internet infrastructure; TMT; life sciences; and clean tech/renewable energy. Ms. Guerrero has a global practice and has worked and lived in Silicon Valley, India, China, Europe, Africa and Latin America. Before joining DLA Piper, Ms. Guerrero was General Counsel and a member of the executive management team for both Reliance Communications (Enterprise), the flagship telecom arm of Indian conglomerate the Reliance Group, and Global Cloud Xchange (GCX), its global Internet and technology subsidiary, which owns and operates the world's largest private submarine cable system, where she was responsible for the company's global corporate and legal affairs, the strategic turnaround of core assets, disposal of non-core assets, preparing IPO/PE investment, and day-to-day crisis/investor management and distressed debt restructuring. |
 | Partner Katherine Henderson is a partner in the San Francisco office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Her practice focuses on corporate governance, the navigation of corporate fiduciary duties, and the representation of companies and their officers and directors in stockholder class actions, derivative suits, and complex commercial litigation. Katherine specializes in conducting investigations on behalf of management, boards of directors, and special board or management committees; advising companies faced with stockholder litigation demands; and representing companies in stockholder actions and "busted deal" litigation. She also advises with respect to directors' and officers' liability insurance coverage and indemnification issues. |
 | Partner Jeffrey Kessler focuses his practice on all aspects of antitrust/competition, sports law, intellectual property (IP), complex litigation, and government criminal and civil investigations. He has been lead counsel in some of the most complex antitrust, sports law, and intellectual property law cases in the country, including major jury trials, and has represented a number of U.S. and international companies in criminal and civil investigations in the antitrust, trade, and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) areas. Mr. Kessler has also been the lead counsel in numerous IP cases involving frontier issues of IP law and lead counsel in numerous government criminal and civil investigations. He is also one of the most prominent lawyers in the country regularly engaged in high-profile sports litigation. |
 | Partner Vladimir Khodosh's practice is focused on technology transactions. He splits his time between Kirkland's Palo Alto and Chicago offices. Mr. Khodosh has handled a variety of software licensing, software development, and business outsourcing transactions. He has counseled clients in many intellectual property and information technology aspects of corporate transactions, including in the merger, acquisition, and bankruptcy contexts. Mr. Khodosh, a registered patent attorney, relies significantly on his software development experience, and his experience counseling clients on protecting patent, copyright, and trade secret aspects of business method, software, and Internet-based intellectual property assets, in representing clients in transactions. |
 | Partner Miriam Kim is a partner in the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles. Her practice focuses on trade secrets matters, complex civil litigation and high-stakes investigations for technology companies. Ms. Kim has significant experience handling trade secret cases, copyright infringement cases involving software, and other IP matters for both plaintiffs and defendants. She has extensive experience leading internal investigations into potential theft of trade secrets or other confidential information. Ms. Kim speaks Korean and has successfully advocated for clients in a range of matters involving Korean companies. Ms. Kim's pro bono practice is focused on the needs of immigrants and victims of sexual abuse. Ms. Kim is also a frequent speaker on diversity issues. |
 | Patent Practice Leader Rich LaCava leads Arent Fox's New York IP group. His diverse, international practice focuses on procurement and enforcement issues for products ranging from mechanical, semi-conductors, and textiles to pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and medical devices. As a former packaging engineer at a leading cosmetic company, Mr. LaCava has particular proficiency with patent issues involving packaging and materials engineering. Having lived and worked in Japan, Rich is adept at addressing cross-border problems. He advises a number of Japanese and European companies on protection, licensing, infringement, and distribution issues. |
 | Partner Jennifer Lantz is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Haynes and Boone. Ms. Lantz focuses on helping companies develop their brands through enforcement policies, clearing their marks for use, registering marks in the U.S. and abroad, commercializing marks through licenses and merchandising agreements, assessing infringement risks, enforcing their trademark rights against others and defending them against allegations of infringement. In addition to her prosecution and counseling practice, Ms. Lantz has an active trademark litigation practice in federal courts around the country. She also handles opposition and cancellation proceedings in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and regularly counsels clients regarding domain name issues and trademark issues in social media. Ms. Lantz has spearheaded enforcement campaigns in the United States and overseas for clients in industries where counterfeiting and knock-offs are prevalent. |
 | Partner Doug Lumish serves as Latham's Vice Chair of the Litigation & Trial Department and formerly served as Global Co-Chair of the IP Litigation Practice. He is resident in the firm's Menlo Park office. Mr. Lumish is a trial lawyer representing technology and life sciences companies across the spectrum of their intellectual property and technology litigation. He regularly handles patent, trade secret, trademark, and copyright cases in district and Federal Circuit courts across the country, and before the International Trade Commission (ITC) and customs regulators. Mr. Lumish frequently speaks and writes about intellectual property and taught a course on patent law at Stanford Law School. |
 | Counsel Kristin Madigan is a counsel in Crowell & Moring's San Francisco office and a member of the firm's Litigation and Privacy & Cybersecurity groups. Ms. Madigan focuses her practice on representing clients in high-stakes complex litigation with a focus on technology, as well as privacy and consumer protection matters including product counseling, compliance, investigations, enforcement, and litigation that typically involves existing and emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, enterprise and cloud-based software, blockchain, and distributed ledgers. Ms. Madigan is a Certified Information Privacy Professional/United States (CIPP/US). Prior to joining Crowell & Moring, she served as an attorney at the FTC in Washington, D.C., in the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Division of Privacy and Identity Protection. In that role, Ms. Madigan led nonpublic investigations and prosecuted unfair and deceptive practices in privacy and data security matters within the FTC's consumer protection authority. |
 | Partner Mark Mao is an experienced litigator who helps organizations leverage their intellectual property while mitigating their privacy risks. He has successfully resolved hundreds of cases and helped take to market hundreds of data-based products. Mr. Mao focuses primarily on intellectual property (IP) and data privacy. He assists companies throughout various business and product life cycles for their evolving IP needs, in addition to addressing their data privacy concerns. Mr. Mao has successfully defended numerous organizations through difficult IP disputes, including patent, trade secret, and copyright and trademark litigation. In addition, he frequently handles litigation involving technology errors and omissions and directors and officers of technology companies. The consumer class actions he resolves often include evolving privacy and regulatory issues, such as in the areas of data breach and misuse, wiretap acts, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and unfair and deceptive acts and practices litigation. |
 | Partner Stafford Matthews is a technology transactions and intellectual property lawyer and the managing partner of the Silicon Valley office of the global law firm Dentons. He is US Co-Chair of Dentons Global Technology Media and Telecommunications (TMT) Sector. Mr. Matthews is dual qualified as an English solicitor and a US lawyer and has extensive experience in both European and Asian markets. He represents technology and industrial companies worldwide in complex contract negotiations; strategic development and the licensing and exploitation of intellectual property and products; litigation and arbitration of contentious contract disputes; the implementation and use of blockchain and smart contract systems; transactional antitrust and competition law matters in the US and the EU; and the negotiation of cross border alliances and joint development ventures. He speaks and writes extensively on current legal issues, including the integration of law and technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and smart contracts. |
 | Partner Robert McCauley III, managing partner of the Finnegan's Palo Alto office and co-leader of the trade secret litigation group, is an experienced trial attorney practicing patent, trade secret, and trademark litigation. A former deputy district attorney, Mr. McCauley has first chaired more than 30 jury trials and more than 50 bench trials. He has examined and cross-examined hundreds of witnesses in open court, and he regularly draws from those experiences when preparing clients for depositions and trial. Since joining Finnegan in 2000, Mr. McCauley has litigated cases spanning a wide range of technologies, including pharmaceuticals (Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) litigation); medical devices; semiconductor devices, including flash memory; bicycle suspension systems and components; liquid cooling systems for data centers and computers; software; and optical networking. |
 | Division Counsel Jennifer Prioleau is a Division General Counsel at HP Inc. with a successful career partnering with management at all levels for both domestic and international B2B and B2C business divisions. She is known as a collaborative business partner and motivational leader with outstanding communication, strategic planning, team building, negotiating, business development, IP and corporate transaction skills. She excels at synthesizing and simplifying complex risks and analytical assessments and delivering innovative business and legal solutions that manage risk/reward and execute on business priorities. |
 | Shareholder Gretchen A. Ramos is Co-Chair of Greenberg, Traurig's Data, Privacy & Cybersecurity Practice and focuses her practice on privacy, cybersecurity, and information management. Her clients come from diverse industries, including technology (SaaS), health care and life sciences, consumer products, manufacturing, academic institutions, and non-profits. Ms. Ramos provides clients with practical business advice on compliance with state and federal U.S. laws, GDPR, APEC, and other global privacy laws in relation to their external and internal privacy and security procedures, product and app development, and advertising practices. She also regularly drafts and negotiates contracts concerning data-related vendors, assists clients in assessing privacy risks in corporate transactions, and provides guidance on and conducts privacy and security assessments. She has managed dozens of data breaches, and helps clients prepare for and immediately respond to security incidents and breaches.
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 | Partner Manny Schmid heads the German Employment & Reward practice at Pinsent Masons. He is resident in the firm's Munich office. Mr. Schmid's practice includes advising on trade secrets violations, worldwide employment reorganization and restructuring, acting as an external HR department, and advice on international assignments/secondments |
 | Partner Tracy Shapiro, a partner in DLA Piper's San Francisco office, advises on privacy, data security and advertising issues and defends clients in investigations and enforcement actions brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), state attorneys general and self-regulatory bodies. She helps technology companies comply with federal and state privacy laws, including the FTC Act, COPPA, VPPA, FCRA, student privacy laws and the California Consumer Privacy Act. Ms. Shapiro spent six years as an attorney at the FTC in the Bureau of Consumer Protection's Division of Privacy and Identity Protection and the Division of Advertising Practices, where she investigated and brought enforcement actions related to consumer privacy, data security and advertising. She helped create principles for industry self-regulation in the area of online behavioral advertising, and she led the FTC's first enforcement action involving online behavioral advertising. After her government service, Ms. Shapiro worked as in-house counsel for Yahoo!, where she advised on privacy, advertising and marketing laws. |
 | Partner Andrew Shoyer co-leads Sidley's Global Arbitration, Trade and Advocacy practice. Mr. Shoyer focuses on the implementation and enforcement of international trade and investment agreements. He also advises companies on compliance with sanctions administered by U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and export controls and anti-boycott rules administered by the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), as well as proceedings before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). Drawing on his experience at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and with the World Trade Organization (WTO), Mr. Shoyer advises companies, trade associations and governments on the use of WTO, NAFTA and other treaty-based trade and investment rules to open markets and resolve disputes. He works extensively with manufacturers and service providers on WTO compliance in Asia and on protection of intellectual property in bilateral and regional free trade negotiations. |
 | Partner Amy Simmerman is a partner in the Wilmington, Delaware, office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Ms. Simmerman is one of the leaders of the firm's Delaware office and governance practice. Her practice focuses on providing advice on all aspects of Delaware corporate law, including fiduciary duties, mergers and acquisitions, stockholder activism, corporate governance, corporate formation, stock issuances, preferred stock investments, and various statutory matters. She frequently speaks and publishes on Delaware law and governance issues. Ms. Simmerman also has been involved in many special committee assignments and internal investigations and provides corporate advice in the context of litigation. Prior to joining Wilson Sonsini, she was corporate counsel at a global software company, where she focused on corporate law issues and M&A. |
 | Partner Randi Singer is a litigation partner based in Weil's New York and Silicon Valley offices, a member of the Firm's Intellectual Property & Media practice and Co-Head of its Cybersecurity, Data Privacy & Information Management group. She focuses primarily on copyright, Lanham Act false advertising and trademark litigation, as well as privacy and cybersecurity, in addition to complex commercial litigation and bankruptcy proceedings. Ms. Singer has earned the Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/US) and Certified Information Privacy Technologist (CIPT) credentials and regularly advises clients in connection with privacy, cybersecurity, and social media issues in a wide variety of matters, including hundreds of transactions ranging from high-profile deals such as Facebook's acquisition of Whatsapp, Inc. to large public company mergers and small talent acquisitions. |
 | Partner James W. Soong is partner in the Intellectual Property Practice Group in Sheppard Mullin's Palo Alto office. Mr. Soong focuses his practice on intellectual property and patent strategy in a broad array of technical disciplines. He has wide-ranging experience representing clients before the Patent Office and the federal courts, including successful appeals to the Federal Circuit on cutting edge legal issues. Utilizing his technical background, Mr. Soong also represents industry-leading clients in portfolio development, pre- and post-grant including inter partes proceedings at the Patent Office, litigation in the federal courts, strategic initiatives, corporate transactions and licensing, corporate policies and best practices, and risk avoidance where intellectual property issues are core. As in-house counsel, he led the global intellectual property strategy at Siebel Systems for six years. |
 | Partner Jennifer Stanley is Chair of the Copyright Group and the Games Industry Group at Fenwick & West. She focuses her practice on intellectual property, technology and media transactions and counsels regularly on copyright protection, strategy, and business model analysis and risk management. Ms. Stanley also advises on copyright disputes and copyright registration matters. She structures, drafts and negotiates complex commercial agreements including game development and publishing agreements (online, offline and mobile), content licensing and distribution agreements, and advertising agreements and has extensive experience in advising on all aspects of strategic commercial transactions. She is one of the go-to authorities on intellectual property issues relating to games, content licensing and social media. Ms. Stanley is also a member of the firm's Privacy and Cybersecurity practice, advising clients on all aspects relating to collection, use and disclosure of personal information. She also advises clients on the legal issues that arise when running sweepstakes, contests and promotions. |
 | Partner Cari Stinebower is a member of Winston & Strawn's White Collar, Regulatory Defense & Investigations Practice in the firm's Washington, D.C. office. She also works closely with colleagues in the Global Privacy & Data Security Task Force, Financial Services, Corporate, and Complex Commercial Litigation groups. Ms. Stinebower counsels clients on compliance with U.S. economic sanctions, Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money laundering (AML) laws and regulations, export controls and anti-corruption/anti-bribery laws and regulations. She works with financial institutions and multi-national corporations to develop compliance programs, conduct AML and Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) risk assessments, conduct internal investigations, respond to government investigations, and address potential conflicts of law arising from non-U.S. data privacy and "blocking" laws and regulations. Ms. Stinebower served as counsel for the U.S. Department of the Treasury's OFAC and as a Programs Officer for OFAC, where she advised on sanctions and anti-terrorism legislation, drafted United Nations Security Council Resolutions and related executive orders. |
 | Partner Eric Tate is co-chair of Morrison's Global Employment and Labor Group. He has represented technology and other companies in the biggest and most highly-publicized trade secrets and employee raiding and mobility cases across multiple industries. Mr. Tate also represents companies in whistleblower, wage and hour, and other employment litigation. In addition, he counsels companies on employment law compliance and transactional matters, including enforceability of restrictive covenants throughout the United States, internal investigations of alleged executive misconduct and whistleblower activity, employment aspects of mergers and acquisitions, and collective bargaining and traditional labor relations. Mr. Tate is a leader in the American Bar Association (ABA) Labor and Employment Section and Employment Rights and Responsibilities Committee, serving as co-chair of the Covenants Not to Compete and Trade Secrets Subcommittee and recently elected to the governing Council for the Labor and Employment Section |
 | Partner Amy Toro is a partner in Covington's San Francisco office. She advises both pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies regarding biologics, pharmaceuticals and devices, including in the digital health space. Ms. Toro works on all types of life sciences transactions, including major collaborations, licensing arrangements, clinical trial agreements, supply and distribution agreements, product development funding deals, and joint ventures and a variety of commercial agreements. She also works with her mergers and acquisition colleagues on product divestitures and asset transfers. Ms. Toro has served as a visiting professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law and at the University of California, Davis. |
 | Partner Anthony Tridico, Ph.D., managing partner of Finnegan's London office, has worked in Europe for most of his career, gaining significant knowledge of the European Patent Convention (EPC) and the diversity of laws and practice among the European national systems. His knowledge of the various legal systems and how they differ from the U.S. allows Dr. Tridico to effectively counsel clients across life sciences industries with global interests in intellectual property. He has over 20 years of experience representing clients with a focus on patent office trials and appeals (PTAB and EPO), patent prosecution management, IP due diligence and litigation. Dr. Tridico's practice includes experience in a variety of technical areas including biologics, immunology and biotechnology, chemical and pharmaceutical sciences, polymers and adhesives, food sciences, medical devices, and diagnostics and instrumentation. |
 | Partner Wendy Huang Waszmer is a litigation partner in the New York office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she is a member of the antitrust practice. She represents and defends public and private companies and individual clients in high-stakes government investigations and federal court litigation. Ms. Waszmer has in-depth criminal and civil experience in a range of industries, including tech platforms, life sciences, financial services, and energy generation. She previously served in several leadership and trial counsel roles for the Department of Justice (DOJ) in New York and Washington, D.C. She has been a first-chair trial counsel in all phases of federal court litigation, including jury and bench trials. As the Assistant Chief of the New York field office of the DOJ Antitrust Division, Ms. Waszmer supervised federal trials and criminal and civil investigations. |
 | Managing Partner & General Counsel Brian Wheeler is Managing Partner and General Counsel at SoftBank Investment Advisors based in Silicon Valley. Prior to joining SoftBank, he was a partner in the Silicon Valley and San Francisco offices of DLA Piper. His career has focused on cross-border mergers and acquisitions and he previously worked in London for four years and Tokyo for seven years. |
 | Partner Stan Young is a partner in Covington's Palo Alto office, of which he was Managing Partner from 2008 to 2014. He uses his 30 years of experience to achieve the best results for his clients in intellectual property and other high stakes disputes. Mr. Young has represented companies in the telecommunications, computer, electronics, semiconductor, software and financial services industries in all phases of federal and state court litigation, arbitration and International Trade Commission investigations. |