Partner

Robb Adkins serves as head of litigation for Winston & Strawn LLP’s San Francisco office and is co-chair of the firm’s White Collar, Regulatory Defense, and Investigations Practice. Mr. Adkins focuses his practice on white collar and internal investigations, complex civil litigation, financial regulation, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) issues, and securities litigation. He is a nationally recognized trial attorney with deep experience in complex white collar matters involving the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and across the federal and state enforcement agencies.

General Counsel + Legal Design Lead

Rochael Soper, General Counsel at innovative design firm IDEO, is an intellectual property transactions attorney whose practice focuses on helping creative people negotiate deals. She is also lecturer at UC Berkeley Law where she teaches Negotiations and an adjunct professor at UC Hastings College of the Law where she has taught both Negotiation & Settlement and Client Counseling. Her expertise includes negotiating contracts for creative people (artists, designers, writers and filmmakers) and general legal representation for copyright, transactions, licensing and first amendment issues. Prior to joining IDEO she practiced at two major law firms.

Consultant

Since joining Welch Consulting full-time in 1988, Ted Anderson's experience has included the development of large data bases from proprietary data of firms and from publicly available Census data; the statistical analysis of promotion, termination, hiring, and pay practices in large class actions brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and more recently, analyses of wage and hour claims brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act and California law. These claims included unpaid overtime, improperly calculated regular rates of pay, misclassification of exempt employees, meal and rest break issues and a wide array of other wage and hour allegations brought in collective and class actions. Dr. Anderson has taught courses in microeconomics, macroeconomics, industrial organization, and managerial economics at California State University, Long Beach. Dr. Anderson has also acted as an expert witness and consulting expert in national wage and hour litigation, including matters brought under the FLSA, California and other state law.

Sr. Vice President

Ron Beaton is Senior Vice President of Trial Behavior Consulting. In this capacity, Ron Beaton utilizes pretrial jury research to provide clients with feedback on case themes, strategies, evidence, witnesses, and presentation style. Mr. Beaton develops focus groups and mock trials for case evaluation and utilizes community attitude surveys for the construction of jury selection profiles. He also develops voir dire questions, drafts and analyzes juror questionnaires, and attends jury selection to provide immediate advice and recommendations. In over 29 years as a jury consultant, Mr. Beaton has worked with attorneys on over 1,000 cases and aided in the selection of nearly 400 juries.

Partner

Roger Bickerstaff a is member of Bird & Bird's International Tech & Comms Group and leads its Digital Technology Solutions, Internet Services and eCommerce industry initiative. Mr. Bickerstaff specializes in all aspects of technology and EU procurement law. His project work focuses on large-scale infrastructure contracts, including contract negotiation and procurement procedures, contract management issues and dispute resolution. He has over 20 years’ experience advising on commercial and procurement law matters relating to large-scale technology projects. In addition to his techlaw skills, Mr. Bickerstaff has particular expertise in EU procurement law issues. He acts for both public sector contracting authorities and private sector bidders and specializes in the set-up and operation of framework agreements.

Partner

Wendy Brenner chairs Cooley's Employment & Labor practice group and works with technology and life science entities, ranging from startups to public companies, on employment counseling and litigation. Her counseling practice spans human resources issues facing employers, including hiring and recruiting, worker classification, employee separations, personnel policies, executive compensation agreements, wage-and-hour matters and compliance with state and federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission requirements. She regularly conducts, directs and advises on workplace investigations involving whistleblower allegations, discrimination and harassment and also advises employers on employee mobility issues, including trade secret matters and restrictive covenants. Ms. Brenner also routinely represents employers in classification audits before the California Employment Development Department, provides training on managing within the law and discrimination/harassment, and assists with the employment-related aspects of M&A transactions.

Partner

Alexandra Brodie chairs the Tech Sector for Gowling WLG and is based in the firm's London office She is an experienced IP litigator with particular expertise in the field of telco patents and big brands, having represented clients such as Hasbro in its Play-Doh litigation and various technology companies in relation to setting strategy in multi-jurisdictional standards essential disputes. She has recently secured victories at the High Court and Court of Appeal against BT in connection with its provision of internet services to the UK. She is also an active member of the firm's US Sales Initiative with responsibility for the Boston territories alongside colleagues from around the business.

former EVP & General Counsel

In addition to her most recent role as EVP, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary at Veracyte, Inc., Julie Brooks has served as CLO at life science companies Conceptus, Inc., Perlegen Sciences, Inc., Access Health, Inc. and Westmark International. She has deep experience in building and managing legal departments and counseling boards of directors in publicly traded and venture backed private companies operating in the medical device, healthcare IT, biotechnology and technology industries. She has expertise in corporate governance, securities and finance, mergers & acquisitions, compliance, IP portfolio management, IP litigation strategy, government regulation and human resources management. In addition to her law degree, she holds an MBA and a Master of Science in Tax Law.

Partner

Greg Call is a partner in Crowell & Moring's San Francisco office and serves as head of that office. He has an active trial practice representing both plaintiffs and defendants in complex commercial cases. He has represented defendants in class actions, government investigations, unfair competition actions, environmental actions and breach of contract actions. Mr. Call has represented plaintiffs (varying from large corporations to small municipalities) in business torts and breach of contract actions, helping them recover over $1 billion. He has successfully represented numerous retail clients as plaintiffs, recovering hundreds of millions of dollars for them. Mr. Call has an active trial practice, regularly trying cases to verdict and practicing in courts in more than 20 states.

Associate

Allison Callaghan is a litigator In Nossaman's Sacramento office. She focuses primarily on employment law. She is experienced in wage-and-hour class and representative actions, and single-plaintiff harassment, discrimination, and wrongful termination cases. She also represents clients in alternative dispute resolution and administrative agency proceedings. In addition to litigation, Ms. Callaghan advises and counsels both public and private employers on employment matters.

Partner

Ron Cami is a partner in Davis Polk’s Corporate Department in the Northern California and New York offices. He leads the firm’s private equity practice and is one of the firm’s leaders of its west coast practice. He has regularly acted for a number of private equity and corporate clients, and he has extensive experience in the full range of M&A transactions, all aspects of private equity transactions, joint ventures, partnerships, shareholder activism and corporate governance issues. He also represents clients in general corporate and securities law matters. From 2010 through 2015, Mr. Cami was the general counsel of TPG Global, a multi-asset, alternative investment firm with over $70 billion of assets under management, where he was responsible for all legal and enterprise risk matters related to TPG, including investing and exit transactions, fundraising and investor relations, global regulatory compliance, business development, government affairs, internal partnership arrangements, and litigation and other disputes. Mr. Cami is a visiting professor at Berkeley School of Law where he teaches courses on the law of M&A transactions

President

Johanna Carrane, President of litigation consulting firm JuryScope, Inc., has extensive trial consulting experience with an expertise in complex litigation. Having been retained on hundreds of cases, her consulting experience includes using mock trials and litigation focus groups to delve into the key issues in a case. Ms. Carrane has broad experience in preparing witnesses: foreign and domestic, lay and expert, from all backgrounds and levels of expertise. Her assistance with witnesses allows the trial team to focus on the content of the examination while preparing the best face of that witness and putting them at ease in their testimony. Ms. Carrane has also assisted developing juror questionnaires, preparing judge and attorney jury voir dire questions and, of course, providing in-court assistance in jury selection.

Of Counsel

Hanley Chew focuses his practice on privacy and data security litigation, counseling and investigations, as well as intellectual property and commercial disputes affecting high technology and data driven companies. Mr. Chew regularly advises companies large and small on data breaches and cybercrimes, network and data security, and internal investigations. He has received the CIPP/US certification from the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Prior to joining Fenwick & West, Mr. Chew was a Vice President at Stroz Friedberg, a specialized cybersecurity and risk management firm. At Stroz Friedberg, he oversaw investigations of, and responses to, data breaches suffered by multiple Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Chew also supervised forensics analyses and investigations involving hundreds of digital devices, email accounts and online repositories. Prior to his work at Storz Friedberg, Mr. Chew served as an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) in the Northern District of California for over ten years.

Partner

Christopher Cole is a partner in Crowell & Moring's Washington, D.C. office and co-chair of the Advertising & Product Risk Management (APRM) Group, a team that provides interdisciplinary solutions to companies facing challenging competitive and regulatory issues. Mr. Cole focuses on matters of false advertising, reputation and brand disparagement, intellectual property infringement, and unfair competition. He litigates Lanham Act and consumer class action cases, defends against Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and related investigations, and, he has handled numerous cases before the National Advertising Division (NAD). Mr. Cole also provides strategic and risk management guidance to some of the world's leading companies in industries such as food and beverages, media and telecommunications, home appliances, technology and consumer products.

Special Counsel

Cynthia Cole has more than 16 years of experience representing global companies and private equity funds in complex strategic business transactions as both a CEO and General Counsel. She advises executives and boards of directors on formation, organic and inorganic growth and exit strategies. She has extensive experience working for technology companies, Including leading telecommunications, software/SaaS and semiconductor companies, with a particular focus on technology and cross-border transactions. Ms. Cole has advised companies on a range of complex transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, asset purchase and joint developments. She has been the first General Counsel for early-stage and advanced technology companies and as such has implemented all backbone commercial and terms of service agreements. Another aspect of her practice includes intellectual property counseling, with particular focus on the allocation of intellectual property ownership, protection and monetization of intellectual property rights, open source software and data privacy.

Partner

Pamela R. Davis, a partner in Orrick’s San Francisco office, has extensive experience in all facets of the FCPA and global investigations. She focuses her practice on defending companies and individuals in government investigations involving white collar and regulatory matters. Ms. Davis has conducted numerous investigations for multinational organizations throughout the world. Most notably, she has been selected two times by the SEC and DOJ as an FCPA Monitor, involving a medical device company and a banking technology company. Ms. Davis gained the unique distinction of being selected three times by the U.S. government to serve as an independent FCPA monitor when she was recently selected by the SEC as the Independent Compliance Consultant for a separate medical device company.

Partner

Michael Dicke is a partner in Fenwick’s litigation practice group and is the co-chair of the firm’s Securities Enforcement group. His practice focuses on conducting internal investigations for public company boards and audit committees, and the representation of public companies and their officers and directors in SEC, Department of Justice, and other law enforcement and regulatory investigations and litigation. He also represents investment advisers, hedge funds, private equity firms, broker-dealers, accounting firms, and financial institutions in SEC and DOJ investigations and proceedings. In addition, Mr. Dicke routinely advises clients on corporate governance and disclosure issues. Recently, he has advised several Fortune 500 companies on real-time disclosure issues following a data breach incident, and regularly provides guidance on the SEC’s increasing focus on cybersecurity regulation and enforcement.

General Counsel

Adam Dolinko serves as General Counsel to Essential, an innovative consumer products company. Mr. Dolinko previously served as Senior Executive and General Counsel at two public technology companies with worldwide operations, including an IPO on NASDAQ (CSR and SiRF). He then helped lead successful international acquisitions of both companies. Prior to moving inhouse, he was a corporate partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, advising private growth through Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Dolinko's expertise includes corporate, capital markets, IPOs, M&A, cybersecurity, IP-licensing and litigation, and compliance.

Counsel

As a member of both the Chemistry and Life Sciences and the M&A and Securities practices of Kilpatrick Townsend, Alan Dow focuses his practice on patent prosecution, acquisition and counselling, and on intellectual property and commercial transactions. Dr. Dow represents large and small corporations and academic and non-profit research institutions in the U.S. and internationally. He has experience in a number of technical areas, including biotechnology, genomics, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, vaccines, immunology, personalized medicine, and plant science and agriculture. Prior to joining the firm, Dr. Dow was Vice President, Intellectual Property and Legal Affairs at Complete Genomics, Inc., a Mountain View, California life sciences company, which has developed and commercialized a DNA sequencing platform for human genome sequencing and analysis. BGI-Shenzhen, the world's largest genomic services company, acquired Complete Genomics in 2013 and named Dr. Dow its Vice President of Intellectual Property. Since 1994, Dr. Dow has been an intellectual property and transactional attorney in patent law firms as well as large general practice law firms, and in-house with a multinational life science and agriculture company and a small publicly traded vaccine company.

General Counsel, North America

Anne-Marie Eileraas is the lead attorney for the North America business at Avanade Inc., a global technology services company founded as a joint venture of Microsoft and Accenture. Ms. Eileraas leads a team of legal professionals supporting Avanade’s North America business, which comprises just over half of the company’s revenue. Before joining Avanade, she served as the Chief Executive Officer of Women’s Professional Soccer and previously, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of support.com, a Silicon Valley provider of software and services that automate the resolution of technology problems. Ms. Eileraas spent several years as an attorney for technology businesses, including Intuit, Honeywell International’s Process Solutions business, and Wind River Systems. She began her career as a litigator and was a partner in a San Francisco law firm, Howard Rice.

Partner

Vera M. Elson is a partner and trial lawyer based in Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's Palo Alto office. Her practice is focused on intellectual property trials and strategic counseling for high technology clients. She primarily handles patent cases in federal district courts across the country and proceedings before the International Trade Commission. Ms. Elson has extensive trial experience in high-stakes cases, including both jury trials and bench trials. She has also successfully litigated cases related to trade secret misappropriation, common law, and copyright claims. She has argued and won before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to law school, Ms. Elson worked as an electrical engineer doing high-speed circuit design.

Partner

Seth Farber is a partner in Winston & Strawn's New York office, and Co-chair of the firm's White Collar, Regulatory Defense, and Investigations Practice. Mr. Farber focuses his practice in white collar criminal defense and corporate internal investigations. He also handles SEC investigations, securities litigation, civil RICO litigation, corporate governance litigation, and litigation associated with mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Farber has tried numerous federal cases to juries and is an experienced appellate advocate who has argued both civil and criminal appeals in federal circuit courts around the country. Prior to joining Winston & Strawn, he worked for five years as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he concentrated in prosecuting white collar crime, including commercial fraud and securities fraud.

Chief Legal Officer, Chief Compliance Officer & Corporate Secretary

Martin Felli is Chief Legal Officer, Chief Compliance Officer and Corporate Secretary for JDA Software. Mr. Felli is responsible for providing leadership on all legal matters for JDA, including corporate governance, compliance, litigation and risk management, acquisition activity and commercial transactions. He joined JDA in October 2013 as General Counsel for Corporate Matters, a position he held for 10 months. Prior to joining JDA, Mr. Felli held positions as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of ECOtality, Inc., Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel of Clear Channel Outdoor, Inc., and Senior Counsel for Home Box Office (HBO). Mr. Felli started his legal career in New York as an associate with the corporate group of the law firm of Latham & Watkins.

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. Her practice focuses on representing companies in government antitrust investigations, including mergers and acquisitions and other civil antitrust matters. She also provides antitrust counseling on a wide range of business conduct, including joint ventures and pricing and distribution. Ms. Ferris has served in leadership positions and has overseen mergers at both the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. At the FCC, she served in the Office of General Counsel, where she led 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. She was also a member of the steering committee overseeing the FCC's review of Comcast's proposed $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable.

Senior Vice President and General Counsel

Ms. Flaminia joined Mellanox in September 2016 as senior vice president and general counsel. Prior to this, Ms. Flaminia served as vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary for PMC-Sierra from January 2007 until its acquisition by Microsemi Corporation in January 2016. Before that, Ms. Flaminia served as senior counsel at Xilinx, Inc. from March 2001 through 2006 where she provided legal services to the company's finance and corporate services, sales, marketing and human resources organizations worldwide. Ms. Flaminia served as manager of legal affairs for McAfee, Inc. (formerly known as Network Associates, Inc.) from December 1999 to March 2001. Ms. Flaminia was in private practice from 1990-1999, representing companies on a wide variety of corporate and litigation matters.

Partner

Buzz Frahn is a Partner in the litigation department of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett. His practice focus is on complex trials, particularly in intellectual property, antitrust, and commercial litigation. With over 20 years representing technology, telecommunications, financial services and life sciences companies, clients look to Mr. Frahn for his unique ability to synthesize difficult-to-understand information into a compelling narrative that persuades judges and juries. He has first-chaired multiple jury trials and tried numerous complex technology cases. Mr. Frahn has also spearheaded worldwide strategy for complex cartel cases with both criminal and civil exposure. He was a founding member of Simpson's Palo Alto office in 1999, and is the Board Chair-elect of Legal Aid at Work, the oldest legal aid organization in the West.

Partner

Tad Freese is the Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins' Silicon Valley office, where he represents a broad range of high technology companies, investment banks, and other public and private companies in their corporate transactions. He was previously a Vice Chair of Latham's Global Corporate Department. Mr. Freese's practice centers on: mergers and acquisitions; public and private securities offerings; public and private company representation.

Partner

John Fuisz is a partner in the Washington, DC office of Vinson & Elkins, where he represents and counsels clients in patent and technology related matters. He helps clients optimize technology assets including asset creation, use, and management, finding unique solutions for achieving major goals by drawing from varied legal tools and experience, including patent licensing and litigation. In addition to being a registered patent attorney, Mr. Fuisz holds a legal masters in Intellectual Property (LLM) and has practiced for over 20 years. He is a first chair litigator with extensive experience representing clients in patent infringement lawsuits with international implications, and with a particular focus before the United States International Trade Commission. Mr. Fuisz has represented clients in connection with IP matters involving the United States, Japan, China, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Ireland, Russia, France and Canada.

Sr. Attorney, Privacy and Security

Flora Garcia is a seasoned privacy and information security professional with more than 17 years of hands-on experience in risk management, compliance, consumer affairs, privacy and data protection. In her current role as a senior attorney at McAfee, she works with senior management and across teams to develop strategy, assure policy compliance, reduce risks and empower business units. Prior to joining McAfee she served as VP and Senior Compliance Officer at MUFG Americas. Ms. Garcia began her legal career at Time, Inc. as its first full-time employee dedicated to customer, web user and employee privacy.

Partner

Jennifer S. Geetter advises global life sciences, health care and informatics clients on legal issues attendant to biomedical innovation, research compliance, financial relationship management, digital health practices, and global privacy and data security laws. She assists her clients with a range of projects, including Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliance, data security law compliance and breach response preparedness and response; research compliance, research program structure, and operational and compliance infrastructure; complex research affiliation agreements and arrangements; scientific review and research misconduct proceedings and investigations (internal and governmental); biobanking and registry development and compliance; development and implementation of data-sharing strategies and platforms to achieve business objectives; and, data privacy, data mapping and data use strategies for mobile apps and other mHealth and digital technologies

Of Counsel

Beth George's practice focuses on the representation of companies in complex cybersecurity and data security matters, including providing advice on legal challenges faced by companies when preparing for and responding to cybersecurity breaches. 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

Tyler Gerking represents corporate policyholders in complex, high-stakes insurance matters. He helps clients negotiate favorable policy terms that match their unique risk profiles, shepherds clients through the claim process and pursues breach of contract and bad faith claims against insurance companies. He is chair of Farella's Insurance Recovery Group and co-chair of its Privacy & Cybersecurity Group. Mr. Gerking proactively maximizes the value of his clients’ insurance assets with approaches tailored to their needs and goals. He reviews and negotiates insurance policy terms, particularly in the cyber insurance, technology errors & omissions (Tech E&O) and directors & officers liability (D&O) areas, to ensure his clients buy policies that fit their unique risks as closely as possible before claims arise.

Partner

Michelle Gillette is a partner in Crowell & Moring's San Francisco office, head of the firm's Food & Beverage Industry Practice, and a member of the firm's Advertising & Product Risk Management Group. She is a trial lawyer who represents emerging and established companies in litigation in federal and California state courts, with an emphasis on defending food, cosmetics, and retail companies in lawsuits involving false or misleading advertising, product liability, unfair competition, unfair business practices, trade secrets, torts, breach of contract, and patent infringement. Specific to products liability, Ms. Gillette serves companies by navigating the intersection of law and science in claims against manufacturers and distributors of medical devices and pharmaceuticals. She is highly experienced with state consumer protection statutes, known as "baby Federal Trade Commission Acts," especially California's consumer protection regime.

Director, Legal, Global Privacy

Brian Gin currently serves as Global Privacy Subject Matter Expert within Cisco’s Legal organization, and has previously held legal roles supporting Cisco’s Services and Marketing organizations. Before joining Cisco in 2005, he worked as an independent consultant for technology start-ups, and as a lawyer at the Walt Disney Internet Group and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Mr. Gin has also served as a member and the President of the Board of Directors of the Asian Law Alliance in San Jose.

General Counsel

William Goodwin is head of legal and policy affairs at AirMap, a Santa Monica- based startup powering the low-altitude airspace intelligence systems of the future. AirMap is the leading provider of aeronautical data and services to unmanned aircraft. Previously, he practiced at Morrison & Foerster's San Francisco office, with a split practice in commercial litigation, tech transactions and regulatory counseling. Mr. Goodwin was also a member of Morrison's UAS practice group, which provides practical and strategic counsel on a wide range of UAS-related matters.

Partner

Daniel Gottlieb is a member of McDermott Will & Emery’s Health practice group and is a co-leader of the firm’s Global Privacy and Cybersecurity practice. He counsels a wide range of health care industry clients, including health information technology vendors and life sciences companies, on health care transactional and regulatory matters. Mr. Gottlieb represents clients on all aspects of software licenses and other agreements for the acquisition of electronic health record systems, enterprise data warehouses and other mission critical information technology as well as hosting and other IT service agreements. Mr. Gottlieb also advises clients regarding data privacy laws, government program reimbursement requirements and other regulatory constraints affecting the development and deployment of mobile apps, software tools and data analytics to engage consumers in the management of their health.

Partner

Veronica M. Gray is a prominent trial attorney in Orange County, California with four decades of experience litigating and negotiating employment issues for her clients. She chairs Nossaman’s Employment Practice Group and represents employers throughout California, as well as meeting their out-of-state needs. Ms. Gray provides counseling, advice, and litigation services to private and public companies and public entities in a broad array of employment and labor related matters including sole plaintiff and class actions related to wage and hour, wrongful terminations, discrimination, harassment, unfair competition and trade secrets, data breach, cybersecurity, executive employment agreements and benefits, severance and separation agreements, leave laws, reductions in force/WARN Act, record retention, e-discovery, audits, labor relations and social media. Ms. Gray counsels employers on how to execute workplace standards that both contribute to the overall stability of their organizations and comport with state and federal laws. Her experience runs the gamut of strategizing and negotiating to mediation, arbitration, and trials on the federal and state level.

Counsel

Michelle Ontiveros Gross is counsel in Davis Polk's Corporate Department, practicing in the Intellectual Property and Technology Group in Northern California. Her practice includes a wide range of intellectual property-related matters, including strategic alliances, joint ventures, and licensing, as well as intellectual property strategy and commercialization, copyright, patent and trademark matters and integration of business units and product lines in connection with M&A activity. She also advises clients on data privacy and security matters, including with respect to mergers and acquisitions, SEC disclosures, development of privacy and data security policies and product development.

Partner

Sarah Guske is a partner in Baker Botts' Intellectual Property group with twelve years of experience litigating software and electronics patent litigation cases. She has litigated matters in district court and before the PTAB involving a wide variety of technologies, including telecommunication protocols and systems, MPEG Multimedia data for broadcast, telephonic voice recognition software and graphic chipset design. Ms. Guske also has significant appellate experience, and has served as an Adjunct Professor teaching patent litigation. She was recently named an Adjunct Professor at the University of California Hastings School of Law for the 2017-2018 academic year, where she will teach in the IP department.

Vice President and Deputy General Counsel

Willie Hernandez currently serves Hewlett Packard Enterprise as Vice President and Deputy General Counsel. Previously, he served in executive roles at Amazon Lab126 and IBM after starting his practice as a litigator with Jackson Walker, LLP. Mr. Hernandez has supported these global companies in developing and selling consumer and enterprise hardware, software, cloud and services; he has served across a wide range of legal functions, including commercial transactions, privacy, security/cybersecurity, compliance, litigation, M&A, IP, employment and other functions. Mr. Hernandez has significant international experience: he spent 13 years at IBM negotiating and supporting global commercial transactions; between 2008 and 2011, he served in Shanghai, China as IBM’s lead counsel for its services division across Asia-Pacific and the growth markets; he supported Amazon Lab126 and currently supports HPE in the global operations of these businesses.

Counsel, Insurance & Litigation

Christine Hiler serves as counsel for insurance and litigation matters at Lyft, Inc. Prior to joining Lyft, Ms. Hiler practiced as Senior Counsel at Hanson Bridgett in San Francisco, where she specialized in business, public agency, and insurance law, handling a variety of business disputes from pre-litigation negotiations to litigation from inception through settlement or judgment. She has significant experience analyzing a variety of insurance policies, providing coverage advice, tendering claims, challenging denials of coverage, and litigating coverage disputes.

Partner

Cynthia Jackson is a member of Dentons' Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice group. She has over 35 years' experience working in the areas of California and US domestic and international employment counseling and litigation. In addition to handling the global coordination of human resources and personnel-related policies and initiatives, she defends companies' C-suite individuals in high-visibility class actions and other high-stakes employment litigation. Ms. Jackson is able to provide clients with coordinated, California, US and global compliance “architecture,” including crafting global (i.e., not US-centric) codes of conduct that fit their geographic footprint, running cross-disciplinary and cross-border compliance audits, designing and providing global compliance training, setting up data-privacy-compliant global whistleblower hotlines, and ensuring that all aspects of the client's code of conduct, and all disciplinary rules thereunder, are implemented and enforced in compliance with local employment and privacy laws.

Partner

Mark T. Jansen is a partner in Crowell & Morings's Intellectual Property Group, resident in the San Francisco office. With more than 25 years of trial and appellate experience, his work has involved a wide range of intellectual property, antitrust, unfair business practice, business tort, breach of contract and other business dispute litigation. Mr. Jansen has substantial patent litigation experience that includes significant Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) pharmaceutical patent litigation matters. He has been successful both at the trial and appellate court levels representing clients with an interest in bringing generic drug products to market. Mr. Jansen also represents patent holders in actions enforcing their right to exclude infringers and has significant antitrust experience in a wide range of industries, including in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. He worked as a research chemist at Stauffer Chemical Company prior to attending law school.

Partner

Eric B. Kingsley has litigated complex cases at the trial and appellate level in both state and federal court on behalf of the California law firm of Kingsley & Kingsley, including over 100 class actions. Mr. Kingsley concentrates his practice on wage and hour litigation and is currently handling several class actions regarding the failure to pay wages, including overtime and the denial of break or meal periods. He is also involved with pharmaceutical overtime litigation in federal court in California, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, involving the failure to pay overtime to pharmaceutical sales representatives. Mr. Kingsley is a prolific speaker at various seminars on employment law and is a contributor to the Daily Journal on issues affecting the California legal community.

Partner

Rachel Kleinberg is a tax partner in the Northern California office of Davis Polk. Her practice focuses on advice to corporate and private equity fund clients on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, spinoffs and reorganizations, as well as cross-border restructurings. She also has significant experience in the areas of corporate finance and derivatives.

Partner

Daniel C. Kloke is an electrical engineer and partner in the Intellectual Property Practice Group of Sheppard Mullin's Palo Alto office. Mr. Kloke specializes in intellectual property law with an emphasis on patent prosecution, strategic patent counseling, patent litigation, drafting and negotiating intellectual property licensing agreements, and counseling on open source as well as standards-setting issues. He has also prepared numerous appeals and noninfringement opinions as well as participated in reexamination proceedings and patent litigation related to Lemelson v. Via Technologies. In addition to his patent practice, Mr. Kloke has extensive experience as a litigating attorney in complex commercial litigation matters and, before being an attorney, enjoyed a career as a computer and network systems engineer.

SVP, General Counsel

Ethan Knowlden joined Accela in June 2017 as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. Previously, he served in this same capacity for Complete Genomics, Inc. from 2013 to 2016. Prior to that, Mr. Knowlden served in various capacities at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Inc. and its predecessor, Chiron Corporation, most recently as their Vice President of Business Development and Licensing and Corporate Counsel. His experience includes seven years in private practice as a corporate and securities specialist with Hughes & Luce L.L.P. (now K&L Gates) and Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP, both Dallas-based law firms. Mr. Knowlden began his career as a Financial Analyst in the New York office of The First Boston Corporation (now Credit Suisse).

Chia-Ling Koh provides legal services in Singapore in association with Osborne Clarke, as a Director of Singapore Law Practice, OC Queen Street LLC. He supports digital innovation, investments and critical infrastructural transformation, including a wide variety of digital projects. Mr. Koh also advises organizations on both contentious and non-contentious cyber security issues, data protection, data-mapping, data-governance, intellectual property management, validity and infringement, due-diligence, telecommunications and media regulations, competition, FinTech and payments financial regulations.

Partner

Wendy Lazerson is the head of Sidley’s Northern California Labor and Employment Group and a partner in Sidley’s Palo Alto office. Ms. Lazerson works with leading Silicon Valley companies, as well as clients based in Asia with U.S. operations, companies with nationwide workforces, and startups in the technology, life sciences and financial industries. She defends clients in high- stakes litigation and arbitration and provides advice and counsel on their sensitive matters, including those that involve members of their management teams. Ms. Lazerson has a long record of success defeating class actions, and prevailing in jury trials, and arbitrations.

Partner

Victoria Lee is a partner in DLA Piper's Silicon Valley office and has been practicing in DLA's Technology and Sourcing practice for over 17 years. Her practice focuses on the representation of emerging growth and public companies in complex technology and commercial transactions in the software and semiconductor industry, as well as a variety of other industry sectors. Ms. Lee has extensive expertise in developing strategies for clients to protect, license and exploit their intellectual property assets. Her practice includes structuring, drafting and negotiating complex commercial and intellectual property agreements. A significant component of her practice includes advising clients on open source business models and compliance issues and she has substantial expertise in representing both customers and service providers in cloud computing transactions. She also has significant experience assisting clients in the intellectual property aspects of buy and sell-side M&A transactions, spin-ins and spin-outs.

Partner

Weishi Li is a partner in Covington's Shanghai office. Her practice covers a wide range of technology-related transactions across multiple sectors, including the life sciences and hi-tech industries. She has extensive experience assisting multinational companies and Chinese companies in structuring and negotiating cross-border transactions with a significant intellectual property element, such as technology joint ventures and strategic alliances. Ms. Li has particular expertise in the life sciences sector, having assisted many western and Chinese life sciences companies in structuring and negotiating commercial, corporate and partnering transactions in China, including strategic collaborations, joint ventures, licensing, acquisitions, co-promotion and distribution arrangements. She has built up extensive knowledge and experience in dealing with issues unique in cross-border transactions involving China.

Principal

Ed Lopez has worked in Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area for over 30 years, first as a corporate attorney with the international law firm of Morrison and Foerster and then as a senior executive and general counsel of several publicly-held, NASDAQ listed technology and medical device companies,including Silicon Image, Terayon Communication Systems and ReSound Corporation. Mr. Lopez has spearheaded business development, joint venture and strategic transactions activities around the world and has developed and managed legal, corporate governance and compliance, IT and HR teams domestically and internationally. He has expertise in intellectual property protection and strategy, licensing, IP monetization and standards setting activities and has negotiated and consummated in and out-bound M&A, joint venture, sales and distribution and licensing transactions in and outside the U.S., including China, Japan, South Korea and Latin America.

Partner

Carolyn Luedtke is a litigation partner in the San Francisco office of Munger, Tolles & Olson. Ms. Luedtke’s practice focuses on complex business litigation, with a particular emphasis on intellectual property matters. Ms. Luedtke has significant experience in trade secret matters, both in situations involving employee mobility, where individuals move from one competitor to another, and in cases involving allegations of trade secret theft in connection with business relationships, non-disclosure agreements, due diligence and partnerships. Ms. Luedtke also has an active practice counseling clients on trade secret protection plans, as well as conducting investigations into the potential theft of trade secret information. She is a frequent speaker at law schools, industry conferences and continuing legal education seminars on the issues that can arise in connection with trade secrets.

Sr. Corporate Counsel

David Majors is Senior Corporate Counsel for Symantec Corporation, headquartered in Mountain View, California. Prior to joining Symantec, Mr. Majors served for 6 years as Senior Enforcement Attorney at Business Software Alliance (now BSA | The Software Alliance).

Of Counsel

Jennifer Martin has worked at the intersection of law and cybersecurity for over 15 years. Her expertise in this area has been uniquely honed through her experience managing cyber risks and responding to threats from a variety of perspectives: as the director of cyber incident response and operations, as lead in-house internal investigations counsel at Symantec; as a managing director of a top cybersecurity and forensics consulting firm; and as a federal and local cybercrime prosecutor and policymaker. As both in-house counsel and as a private consultant, Ms. Martin has managed and advised a multitude of organizations on cyber risk mitigation and information management, and has personally developed the people, processes, and holistic programs necessary for operational excellence, internal investigations, and crisis management. She has supervised countless cyber incident response matters, including data breaches, insider thefts of trade secrets, and intrusions, from initial detection through containment, notification, recovery and remediation.

Partner

Einat Meisel is head of O’Melveny’s Israel Practice and a recognized leader in cross-border corporate and transactional matters involving Israel. She advises international clients on their investments and operations in Israel, as well as Israel-based clients on their cross-border growth, financing, and transactional matters. Her clients include seed-stage emerging growth companies as well as mature global companies, with an emphasis on companies in the technology and life sciences sectors. Ms. Meisel is fluent in all manner of complex, cross-border transactions, from venture capital financings to business combination transactions, public offerings and private placements, spin-outs, recapitalizations, and joint ventures and strategic alliances. Prior to joining O’Melveny, she spent more than 14 years practicing in Tel Aviv with a well-known Israeli firm.

Partner

Nader A. Mousavi is a partner in Sullivan & Cromwell’s Palo Alto office and is co-head of the Firm’s Intellectual Property and Technology Group and the Firm’s Cybersecurity Group. A leader in the field of technology and intellectual property transactions and strategy. Mr. Mousavi focuses his practice on the intellectual property and technology aspects of high-stakes transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, spin-outs, joint ventures, collaborations, financings, licenses and settlements. He has extensive experience in the licensing and transfer of patents, trademarks, trade secrets, know-how, content, pharmaceuticals, data, software and other technology. Prior to joining Sullivan & Cromwell, Mr. Mousavi was a partner at WilmerHale where he co-founded the firm’s Palo Alto office. Earlier in his career, he served as the general counsel to a telecommunications software (SaaS) company through its acquisition by a leading broadband equipment company.

Partner

Stefan Münch is a partner in the Corporate and M&A practice group in Bird & Bird's Munich office and a member of the firm's Tech & Comms and Life Sciences groups. Mr. Münch advises clients with respect to national and cross border mergers and acquisitions, private equity and venture capital transactions. He represents and advises clients in the fields of corporate, partnership and commercial law. Mr. Münch has gained broad experience in advising purchasers/sellers in national and international M&A transactions as well as investors and funds in venture capital investments and financing rounds, including the drafting and negotiating of term sheets, share/asset purchase agreements, investment and shareholder agreements, joint venture and merger agreements and the coordination and undertaking of (cross border) due diligence procedures. He also advises clients on all questions concerning the re-structuring of companies with particular focus on corporate and insolvency law and corporate governance aspects.

Associate General Counsel, Head of IP Strategy

Chris Nalevanko is the Associate General Counsel and Head of IP Strategy at Zoox. Before joining Zoox, Chris worked in Amazon's IP group as a Senior Corporate Counsel, where he handled intellectual property, employment, open-source, IP-related license and agreement negotiation, and technology issues for AWS. Before Amazon, Chris was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis in Washington D.C., where he handled intellectual property litigation matters along with other litigations involving contract, confidential information, and employment disputes. He also spent time clerking for the Honorable Alvin A. Schall at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and working at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

Partner

Glenn Nash is a corporate partner in Sidley’s Palo Alto office and global co-leader of Sidley’s Technology & IP Transactions practice. He has deep experience in the Internet, media, software, hardware and information technology industries. Mr. Nash’s practice focuses on intellectual property matters and providing strategic counseling to companies establishing and expanding their business and operations domestically and internationally. Mr. Nash also handles complex business transactions including technology, content and intellectual property transactions, joint ventures and other strategic collaborations and commercial transactions domestically and internationally for both established and emerging growth companies. Mr. Nash advises clients on intellectual property ownership, use, acquisition, sale, license and protection, and structures and negotiates U.S. and cross-border transactions.

Partner

Tyler Newby, a partner in Fenwick & West's San Francisco office, focuses his practice on privacy and data security litigation, counseling and investigations, as well as intellectual property and commercial disputes affecting high technology and consumer-facing Internet companies. Mr. Newby has an active practice in defending companies in consumer class actions, state attorney general investigations and federal regulatory agency investigations arising out of privacy and data security incidents. In addition to his litigation practice, Mr. Newby regularly advises consumer-facing Internet companies large and small on reducing their litigation risk on privacy, data security and secondary liability issues. He frequently counsels game and social media companies on compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Mr. Newby is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals, and has received the CIPP/US certification.

Partner

Jeff Ostrow is head of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett's Palo Alto office, chair of Simpson's Intellectual Property Practice and a member of the firm's Executive Committee. He litigates cases for high-profile technology companies and advises clients on the IP aspects of M&A and capital markets transactions. With his colleagues at Simpson Thacher, he has developed award-winning data-driven analytic tools built to assess litigation and corporate issues and risks. He frequently lectures on IP issues and currently teaches IP Strategy at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, where he is a cofounder of the UC Berkeley Informatics Lab.

Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Cyber Branch, San Francisco

M.K. Palmore serves as the leader of the San Francisco FBI Cyber Branch. His responsibilities include the strategic and operational management of several teams of cyber intrusion investigators, computer scientists and digital forensics personnel. Mr. Palmore entered on duty with the FBI in 1997. His assignments, in addition to San Francisco, have included FBIHQ, and the Sacramento and Los Angeles Field Offices. Prior to his current assignment, Mr. Palmore supervised and conducted investigations in International and Domestic Terrorism, Cyber Terrorism, Civil Rights, Public Corruption, Organized Crime, Violent Crimes, and Human Intelligence (HUMINT) development.

Partner

Based in Wilson Sonsini's Los Angeles and Palo Alto offices, Edward G. Poplawski is head of the firm's patent litigation practice. Mr. Poplawski currently serves as a member of the firm's Strategic Practice Development Committee. Nationally recognized as one of the nation's leading trial lawyers, he focuses his practice primarily on patent litigation, including jury trials and proceedings before the International Trade Commission. Mr. Poplawski also has litigated and tried high-profile cases involving trademark and copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation, and antitrust violations. As lead counsel for companies both large and small as well as nonprofit institutions, he successfully has litigated patents across a broad range of technologies. Mr. Poplawski has been involved in arbitration proceedings before the Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce and the American Arbitration Association, in addition to special patent litigation proceedings under the U.S. Atomic Energy Act.

Jay Qin provides legal services in Hong Kong in association with Osborne Clarke, as an associate and founding member of Koh Vass & Co’s Corporate and Commercial team. He has advised on a diverse range of corporate, commercial and regulatory matters including multi-jurisdiction M&A transactions, employment, franchising, data privacy, corporate governance, and group amalgamations. Mr. Qin has also advised major multi-national technology clients on issues of e-payments / e-currency and telecommunications regulations.

Asst. General Counsel, Asst. Corp. Secretary & Director, Corporate Legal

At Juniper, Shahzia Rahman works on a wide range of corporate matters, including strategic investments, M&A, SEC reporting (10-Ks, 10-Qs, 8-Ks, proxy statements, etc.), corporate governance, product financing, real estate, marketing and investor relations. She acts as corporate secretary for the Nominating and Corporate Governance and Audit Committees. Ms. Rahman works closely with a variety of functional teams, including HR, IR, finance, tax, corporate strategy, real estate, treasury and compliance. Prior to joining Juniper, Ms. Rahman practiced at WilmerHale as a corporate attorney in its Boston and Palo Alto offices.

Director, Privacy & Cybersecurity

Kenia Rincón is a Director in the Privacy & Cybersecurity practice at Fenwick & West. Ms. Rincón focuses on helping organizations understand their privacy, cybersecurity and compliance risks and to develop, implement and operate cost efficient compliance strategies. Prior to joining Fenwick & West, Ms. Rincón was a Director in the Privacy & Cybersecurity practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Additionally, she has over 20 years of hands-on industry and consulting experience in leadership and implementation of privacy, information security, IT compliance, audit and risk management strategies and operational programs at multi-national companies such as Merck and Schering-Plough.

Lead Counsel

Debbie Rosenbaum is lead counsel at Oculus VR, a Menlo Park-based technology company acquired by Facebook in 2014, which specializes in virtual reality hardware and software products. Ms. Rosenbaum has also served in inhouse positions at AdRoll and Thismoment, Inc. Prior to moving inhouse, she practiced at DLA Piper and Morrison & Foerster in the intellectual property arena, including copyright and trademark, technology transactions and licensing, owned and user-generated content and platform compliance. Her current responsibilities range from employment law to corporate structures to product counseling.

Partner

Aaron Rubin is co-chair of Morrison & Foerster's Technology Transactions Group. His practice focuses on transactions and counseling involving intellectual property and technology, including structuring and negotiating license agreements, supply agreements, technology transfers, joint development agreements, information technology and business process outsourcing transactions, and other intellectual property and commercial matters relevant to software, hardware, electronic commerce, and other advanced information technology businesses. Mr. Rubin also regularly advises clients on the intellectual property aspects of their M&A transactions. In addition, Mr. Rubin’s practice includes advising clients on legal issues arising in the rapidly evolving areas of social media, e-commerce and other online business models, such as those involving media sharing, user-generated content, social networking, mobile applications, data aggregation and collection, and paid search.

Partner

Kevin Sadler is an experienced jury trial and appellate lawyer who represents major energy, technology and service firms in the defense of tort, contract, statutory and intellectual property claims. Mr. Sadler serves as the chair for Baker Botts' Northern California litigation practice. He also assists clients who are called upon to respond to civil investigations by state and federal agencies. Mr. Sadler has tried numerous cases in both state and federal courts, representing both plaintiffs and defendants. As an appellate advocate, he has presented oral argument to state and federal courts of appeal in over 25 cases, covering a wide variety of state and federal law issues. Since 2009, Mr. Sadler has served as lead trial counsel for the receiver appointed by a federal court to take over the Stanford Financial Group, a world-wide multi-billion dollar financial services network operated as one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history.

Partner

Stephen Salmon is a partner in Davis Polk’s Corporate Department, practicing in Northern California. He has extensive experience in a wide range of public and private M&A transactions and venture capital investments and a variety of capital markets transactions, including initial public offerings and other debt and equity offerings, for companies across many industries. He also represents clients in public reporting, securities law, and corporate governance matters.

General Counsel, Director of IP and Chief Compliance Officer

Mr. Schar rejoined Dextera Surgical in May 2016. Most recently, Mr. Schar served as of counsel for Morrison & Foerster, and handled a portfolio of software and user interface patents for a major consumer electronics company. Prior to that, Mr. Schar was in-house counsel at Intematix, a phosphor manufacturer in the LED lighting industry, and was responsible for the company’s patent portfolio of almost 500 issued and pending global patents and applications. Mr. Schar was responsible for all commercial contracts involving the company, including distribution, supply, and partner agreements, primarily involving customers and partners in Asia and Europe, and worked closely with employees across the company to ensure environmental, FCPA and other compliance matters. Previously, Mr. Schar was director of intellectual property at Cardica from 2001 to 2012, where he handled all aspects of patent and trademark prosecution and portfolio management for the company. He also developed Cardica’s original compliance program, including insider trading and trading window compliance. Mr. Schar started his career as an associate at the law firm of Lyon & Lyon.

Partner

Stefani Shanberg, a partner in Morrison & Foerster's San Francisco office, represents technology companies in patent infringement cases before the federal courts, the International Trade Commission, and arbitral tribunals. Ms. Shanberg’s patent litigation engagements have related to diverse technologies, and her clients have ranged from venture-backed startups to Fortune 100 public companies. Ms. Shanberg has obtained successful outcomes, often based on creative and novel issues of law, including winning cases at trial, winning cases on summary judgment and on motions to dismiss, prevailing on advantageous claim constructions, winning motions to transfer and stay, and convincing the Ninth Circuit and Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal to affirm favorable lower-court rulings. While her practice involves matters pending throughout the nation, Ms. Shanberg has particular experience with investigations before the International Trade Commission.

Partner

Stephanie Sharron is a partner in Morrison & Foerster's Palo Alto office and a member of the firm’s Technology Transactions Group. Clients turn to Ms. Sharron for advice on the issues that apply to their business models in light of the rapid changes in business, technology and law. With a focus on companies that leverage data through technology, She counsels companies in connection with commercial and technology transactions, go-to-market strategies and related intellectual property, open source, and data-specific issues. Currently, Ms. Sharron is working with many companies that are transforming their businesses through application of newly emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, block chain, and data analytics (e.g., machine learning and deep learning methods). Ms. Sharron has represented companies across technologies and industries, including cloud services, fintech, e-commerce and electronic contracting, mobile, life sciences, healthtech, retail, automotive, cleantech and semiconductors, among others. Ms. Sharron also advises on the commercial technology and intellectual property aspects of mergers, acquisitions, asset spin-off transactions and private equity investments.

Partner

John Shi is a Partner and Head of the Corporate team of Bird & Bird's Beijing office. He has been based in China for over 17 years specializing in foreign direct investment, cross-border M&A and corporate and regulatory matters. Mr. Shi has extensive experience in representing multinational companies on their investments in China, covering all aspects of foreign direct investment and M&A across all types of corporate structures and operational issues in China. He represents clients across a number of key industries, including: financial services, oil and gas, publishing and media, mining, manufacturing, aviation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals. Mr. Shi also regularly works with global colleagues in advising Chinese companies (including many well-known state-owned enterprises), on their offshore investments across jurisdictions such as: Germany, Russia, Australia, USA, UK and Singapore.

Partner

Laura D. Smolowe is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Munger, Tolles & Olson and is co-chair of the firm's Trade Secret and Employee Mobility Practice Group. Her practice focuses on complex commercial litigation and trials in federal and state court. Ms. Smolowe has particular expertise in the area of trade secrets and employee mobility. She publishes regularly in this area and co-authored the chapter on trade secrets and restrictive covenants in the 2016-2017 editions of the California Business Litigation handbook. Ms. Smolowe has a special interest in constitutional law and has litigated multiple constitutional issues, including section 1983 and state and federal habeas cases involving, among other issues, due process and the First, Sixth and Eighth Amendments. She maintains an active pro bono docket, where she focuses on civil rights cases.

Partner

Wayne Stacy is a partner in Baker Botts' Intellectual Property group with twenty years of experience litigating high stakes patent and trade secret cases. He is skilled in competitor-against-competitor cases where injunctions and large damages are at issue. He has tried cases in leading patent jurisdictions such as the Northern District of California and the Eastern District of Texas, and has represented clients before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Mr. Stacy has experience on both sides of “bet the company” disputes, helping patent holders protect their market share from upstart competitors, as well as defending companies attacked by so-called “patent trolls.” In the past several years, Mr. Stacy has advised his clients on the strategic use of post-grant trial proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. He is the co-editor of the PTAB Digest which tracks and analyzes PTAB decisions. With a background in computer engineering, Mr. Stacy focuses on litigating electronics and software cases.

Partner

Nancy Stade is a partner in Sidley's Food, Drug and Medical Device Regulatory practice within the global Life Sciences team. Her practice focuses on advising clients in the medical device, combination product, digital health and life sciences arenas on all aspects of FDA oversight. She has twenty years experience in Food and Drug law, specializing in medical device and combination product regulation and has deep knowledge of the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory processes, such as requests for designation of combination products, appeals of significant decisions within the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, and requests for information concerning devices. Before joining Sidley, she worked for 17 years at the FDA in a variety of senior positions, including Deputy Director for Policy at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, where she led the development and implementation of the FDA’s device regulatory policy.

Partner

Kolvin Stone is a partner in Orrick's Technology Companies Group in London and global co-chair of the firm's Cybersecurity & Data Privacy team and Technology Transactions Group. He practices at the intersection of technology, intellectual property and data for leading public and private companies in high growth innovation driven markets. His work regularly involves complex, cross-border matters that raise multi-faceted intellectual property, data privacy, consumer protection, and Internet regulatory issues. Mr. Stone has significant experience advising on the legal issues related to the internalization of technology and internet enabled services including e-commerce, social media, big data, digital marketing and advertising. He has worked extensively with clients who are both providers and users of cloud software, data analytics platforms, IT infrastructure services, and mobile applications, in Europe, Asia and in the United States.

Partner

Tim Stratford is the managing partner of Covington & Burling's Beijing office and a member of the firm's International Trade, Corporate and Government Affairs Practice Groups. Mr. Stratford’s practice is focused on advising international clients doing business in China and assisting Chinese companies seeking to expand their businesses globally. As a former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative, Mr. Stratford is the most senior former U.S. trade official working as a member of the U.S. business community in China. Except for the five years he spent in Washington, D.C. in government service (2005-2010), Mr. Stratford has lived and worked continuously in the greater China region since 1982. While at USTR, he was responsible for developing and implementing U.S. trade policy toward mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao and Mongolia. Prior to serving at USTR, Mr. Stratford was General Counsel for General Motors’ China operations, where he was a member of GM’s senior management team in China and oversaw the company’s legal and trade policy work.

Partner

Aravind Swaminathan is a partner in Orrick's Seattle office and global co-chair of the firm's Cybersecurity & Data Privacy team. Mr. Swaminathan is a former federal cybercrime prosecutor, an accomplished trial lawyer, and class action litigator, with extensive experience in handling cybersecurity incidents and data breaches, government and internal investigations, and privacy-related matters. He advises clients in cybersecurity risk assessment and management, breach incident response planning, and corporate governance responsibilities related to cybersecurity. Mr. Swaminathan has directed over 100 data breach investigations and cybersecurity incident response efforts, including ones with national security implications. He also represents companies and organizations facing cybersecurity and privacy-oriented FTC, SEC, and State Attorney General investigations and class action litigation.

Special Counsel

Brian Sweeney is a special counsel in the Government Contracts, Investigations & International Trade Practice Group in Sheppard Mullin's San Francisco office. Mr. Sweeney has broad experience in all aspects of federal procurement law, including administrative and court litigation, costs, pricing and accounting issues, bid protests, procurement fraud investigations, compliance and self-governance programs, claims, and counseling. He joined Sheppard Mullin from Aerojet Rocketdyne, Inc., a world-recognized aerospace and defense leader in the areas of missile and space propulsions and munitions and armaments, where he served as Vice President and General Counsel. During his nineteen-year tenure at Aerojet, Mr. Sweeney headed the company's International Trade Compliance, Contracts, and Ethics & Compliance organizations, and served as Chief Legal Officer.

Partner

Lindsey Tonsager helps national and multinational clients in a broad range of industries anticipate and effectively evaluate legal and reputational risks under federal and state data privacy and communications laws. In addition to assisting clients engage strategically with the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the U.S. Congress, and other federal and state regulators on a proactive basis, she has experience helping clients respond to informal investigations and enforcement actions, including by self-regulatory bodies such as the Digital Advertising Alliance and Children’s Advertising Review Unit. Ms. Tonsager’s practice focuses on helping clients launch new products and services that implicate laws governing the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising and social media, the collection of personal information from children and students online, behavioral advertising, e-mail marketing, the processing of “big data” in the emerging Internet of Things, spectrum policy, online accessibility, compulsory copyright licensing, telecommunications and new technologies.

Partner

Joseph Torres is a partner in the Chicago Labor and Employment Practice of Winston & Strawn. Mr. Torres concentrates his practice in labor, employment, and ERISA litigation before state and federal trial and appellate courts, as well as administrative agencies such as the NLRB, EEOC, DOL, and OSHA in a wide variety of discrimination, employee benefit, whistleblower, retaliation, and other employment claims arising under state and federal law. Mr. Torres also advises clients on collective bargaining relationships and labor disputes, including formulation of bargaining strategies, contract administration, maintenance of operations during labor disputes, and responses to “corporate” campaigns. Mr. Torres also represents clients in the negotiation of employment and related agreements, both for individuals and in connection with corporate transactions and reductions-in-force, and has extensive experience in the areas of covenants not to compete, and the protection of trade secrets and other proprietary information.

Partner

Erica Villanueva is a partner in Farella's San Francisco office, where she advises policyholders seeking to maximize coverage under their insurance policies, and litigates insurance coverage disputes. She has extensive experience handling claims under a variety of insurance policies, including general liability, directors’ and officers’ liability, venture capital/private equity liability, aviation, employment practices liability, property and business interruption policies. She works with policyholders to ensure that their claims are properly presented to insurers, to obtain the maximum possible insurance recovery and resolve any coverage disputes that may arise during the course of a claim. Ms. Villanueva has substantial coverage litigation experience, both at the trial and appellate levels.

Senior Patent Counsel

David Wallace is a member of the Johnson & Johnson Law Department, and primarily responsible for day-to-day activities regarding the patent aspects of the health technology initiatives of the Enterprise. Prior to moving in-house, Mr. Wallace practiced in the IP Group at Fenwick & West's Silicon Valley office and in the Electrical Practice Group of Finnegan in that firm's Palo Alto office.

Deputy General Counsel, VP & Chief Compliance Officer

Michael Ward serves as Deputy General Counsel, Vice President & Chief Compliance Officer for Juniper Networks. Before his current position, he designed and implemented enterprise-wide compliance programs as in-house counsel for many other major U.S. corporations as: Managing Director, Atlas Compliance Solutions (2014-2015); Deputy General Counsel and Vice President, Compliance Systems and Investigations for Cisco Systems, Inc. (2012-2013); Associate General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer for Adobe Systems Inc. (2009-2012); Director, Global Compliance and Ethics, McKesson Corporation (2008-2009); and Investigations Counsel, Senior Group Manager, Business Conduct and Corporate Compliance for Target Corporation (2006-2008). Prior to his in-house experience, Mr. Ward served for 16 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, where he tried more than 50 federal criminal jury trials and focused primarily on complex cases involving price fixing, public corruption, corporate insider trading, mail and wire frauds, money laundering and commercial bribery. Prior to his government service, Mr. Ward was an associate at Shearman & Sterling, and a judicial law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Partner

Henry Welch is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Haynes & Boone, where he draws on technical experience from his more than 18 year career as an engineering educator, researcher, and consultant to tailor legal advice, including a thorough understanding of the technologies important to the client. Dr. Welch's practice includes preparing patent applications, responding to office actions, providing pre-litigation advice, providing due diligence advice, and representing clients in trials before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board and Federal courts. His experience allows him to provide legal advice relevant to technologies ranging from semiconductor devices and processes to web enterprise including computer networking, databases, data structures, cloud computing, memory and storage systems, computer graphics, fuzzy logic, digital systems, FPGAs, embedded systems, control systems, artificial intelligence, open source software, and software development processes.

Partner

Kathleen Wells is a corporate partner in Latham & Watkin's Silicon Valley office and Co-chair of the Silicon Valley Corporate Department. Ms. Wells has represented private and public companies across several industries, venture capital firms and investment banks. Her practice focuses on corporate and securities law, and her transactional experience includes numerous venture capital financings, public securities offerings, and mergers and acquisitions. Her general company representation includes assistance with company formation and startup matters, debt and equity financings, mergers and acquisitions, advising boards of directors regarding corporate governance matters, employment matters, equity incentives, public company disclosure issues, and federal and state securities law compliance. Ms. Wells is a member of the Advisory Board of the Silicon Valley Directors' Exchange (SVDX).

Partner

Steve Wilson is the head of Osborne Clarke's New York office and former head of its Silicon Valley office. As an English-qualified lawyer resident in the US for a decade, Mr. Wilson has extensive experience of advising American-headquartered clients. He counsels US companies on all aspects of their international legal needs. Advising North American clients on English legal matters and supporting their global legal projects, Mr. Wilson works closely with Osborne Clarke’s international offices and network of law firms around the world. He is a corporate transactional lawyer but acts as an outsourced general counsel assisting clients with all kinds of cross-border work, focusing particularly on companies active in the Digital Business space. His recent work includes representing numerous emerging businesses establish overseas operations, advising clients on UK acquisitions, representing US investors on European investments and managing multi-jurisdictional projects across Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.

Corporate Counsel

Isaac Wofford is corporate counsel at Caterpillar Inc., the Peoria, Illinois-based company which designs, develops, engineers, manufactures, markets and sells machinery, engines, financial products and insurance to customers via a worldwide dealer network. Mr. Wofford supports Caterpillar's digital products and services throughout the entire digital product lifecycle, from ideation through development, distribution and support. He was worked digital products from industrial IOT solutions to autonomous mining systems. Prior to joining Caterpillar, Mr. Wofford practiced at Jones Day where he concentrated on mergers and acquisitions with an emphasis on technology and telecommunications businesses.

Partner

Darryl Woo is a veteran trial lawyer who has successfully tried numerous cases to verdict, and concentrates his practice on patent litigation and other complex technology litigation, principally in the areas of semiconductors, information technology, life sciences and biotechnology. He has appeared as lead counsel in patent litigation across the country, including before the ITC, dealing with technologies ranging from software to semiconductor fab equipment, materials chemistry, voice over IP, fiber optic networking, bio assays, diagnostic tools, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and recombinant DNA. In addition, Mr. Woo has represented a range of clients in copyright, trademark and trade dress infringement cases, trade secret and licensing disputes, unfair competition, trade libel, false advertising, and other complex litigation.

Partner

Phil Woo, a partner in Haynes and Boone's Palo Alto office, leads and works with teams on the deep technical issues in intellectual property matters of commercial significance for high-technology companies. With a degree in electrical engineering and substantial real-world experience in the high-tech industry, clients have entrusted him as lead technical counsel for numerous matters, in both litigation and transactions. His technical areas include all forms of electrical and electronic arts including computer architecture, storage systems and networks, server networks and architecture, microprocessors, memories, software and Internet applications, telecommunications, wireless, interactive television and electronic program guides, satellite, business methods, semiconductor design and processing, semiconductor packaging, circuit design and medical devices. Mr. Woo has worked for a wide spectrum of innovation-driven high-tech companies, ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 corporations.

Vice President

Wendy T. Wu is a Vice President in Stroz Friedberg’s Los Angeles office, where she directs engagements involving cybercrime and data breach response, information security, digital forensics, intellectual property protection, and electronic discovery. Prior to joining Stroz Friedberg, Ms. Wu was an Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California, where she most recently served in the Cyber and Intellectual Property Crimes Section, National Security Division. She also served as a member of the Los Angeles Electronic Crimes Task Force, an inter-agency cybercrime response organization.

Associate General Counsel

Heather Yohn serves as Associate General Counsel for Pindrop Security, Inc., a company pioneering the future of secure, trusted and convenient voice interactions. Ms. Yohn is an intellectual property transactions attorney whose practice focuses on helping energetic sales people and innovative engineers negotiate deals. She is also responsible for the company’s export compliance and open source programs. Prior to joining Pindrop, she served as in-house counsel for Palm, Amazon Lab126 and SugarCRM across a wide range of legal functions. Ms. Yohn began her legal career in Silicon Valley as a technology transactions associate with the law firm of DLA.

Steve Yu provides legal services in China for Osborne Clarke, as Co-Managing Partner (and co-founder) of Zhang Yu & Partners. Mr. Yu has 20 years of experience in advising western and Asian corporations on complex cross-border transactions relating to China. He previously built and managed China offices for major western law firms. His practice encompasses mergers and acquisitions, business incorporation, international joint venture, technology licensing, franchising, business consolidation and restructuring, regulatory and compliance. Mr. Yu represents clients across a wide spectrum of business sectors, and also guides Chinese State-owned companies and privately-owned businesses on their outbound investments to the West. In addition to his corporate practice, he advises on trademark and brand protection, cross-border IP licensing, establishment and operation of R&D centers, commercialization of IP rights and enforcement by civil and criminal actions.

Partner

Brian L. Zimbler advises on cross-border investment, financial and regulatory matters, primarily in emerging markets. He has more than 25 years of experience with Russia, Kazakhstan, and other countries in the former Soviet Union; has practiced in Russia and the United Kingdom; and typically works on complex international transactions that involve several jurisdictions. Mr. Zimbler represents clients in a wide range of industries, including software, technology, media and telecommunications, and pharmaceuticals and life sciences. He is dual-qualified as an English solicitor and a US attorney.