Alison Tucher has a complex commercial litigation practice in federal and state courts. She has represented large corporations in multi-patent disputes, businesses suing or being sued under antitrust and unfair competition laws, and entrepreneurs in a variety of commercial disputes. She has handled cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit, district courts around the country, and in California courts. Ms. Tucher also won the freedom of a man wrongfully imprisoned for a murder he did not commit.

Before joining Morrison & Foerster in 1998, Ms. Tucher served as law clerk to Judge William A. Norris on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and to Justice David H. Souter at the United States Supreme Court. She then spent three years trying cases as a Deputy District Attorney in Santa Clara County.

Ms. Tucher holds a B.A. in economics from Williams College, where she graduated magna cum laude in 1984, and an M.A. degree in engineering from Cambridge University. She earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1992, serving as Book Review Editor of the Stanford Law Review and graduating Order of the Coif.

Ms. Tucher received the President's Service Award from the Santa Clara County Trial Lawyers' Association in 2003, and was listed by Northern California Super Lawyers magazine as a "Super Lawyer" in Business Litigation in 2005 and 2006.

Recent Publications

• “Intellectual Property Roundtable,” published in California Lawyer, January 2008.
• “How Seagate Affects Patent Owners and Defendants,” published in Managing Intellectual Property, October 2007.
• “Standard Patent Defense Jeopardizes Attorney-Client Privilege,” published in Executive Counsel, May/June 2007.

Representative Cases

• For a party accused of willful patent infringement, Ms. Tucher successfully established the scope of work-product immunity for opinion counsel’s papers. See In re EchoStar, 448 F.3d. 1294 (Fed. Cir. 2006).
• For an entrepreneur with an international GPS-technology business, Ms. Tucher conducted a successful two-week arbitration.
• For the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Ms. Tucher briefed a civil RICO issue in the United States Supreme Court.
• For a leading manufacturer of photolithography equipment used in semiconductor manufacturing, Ms. Tucher litigated a multi-patent dispute against a major industry competitor. Her team successfully handled the U.S. District Court action until it was resolved as part of a global settlement.
• On behalf of the people of California, Ms. Tucher tried 19 criminal cases to juries in Santa Clara County.