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Best Lawyers Names Four MoFo Attorneys “Lawyers of the Year”

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Morrison & Foerster has been recognized in the 2021 edition of Best Lawyers in America, with 132 lawyers receiving 189 individual recognitions across various practices and offices in the United States. Among the firm’s ranked lawyers, four were named “Lawyers of the Year,” including:

We are Morrison Foerster — a global firm of exceptional credentials. Our clients include some of the largest financial institutions, investment banks, and Fortune 100, technology, and life sciences companies. The Financial Times has named us to its list of most innovative law firms in North America every year that it has published its Innovative Lawyers Reports in the region,and Chambers Asia-Pacific has named us the Japan International Firm of the Year for the sixth year in a row. Our lawyers are committed to achieving innovative and business-minded results for our clients, while preserving the differences that make us stronger.Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

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Morrison & Foerster has been recognized in the 2021 edition of Best Lawyers in America, with 132 lawyers receiving 189 individual recognitions across various practices and offices in the United States. Among the firm’s ranked lawyers, four were named “Lawyers of the Year,” including:<ul><li>Jack W. Londen, Litigation, Intellectual Property</li><li>Mark C. Zebrowski, Bet-the-Company Litigation</li><li>Michael G. O’Bryan, Mergers and Acquisitions Law</li><li>William I. Schwartz, Information Technology Law</li></ul>Additionally, 42 of the noted lawyers were designated in the “Ones to Watch” category. In its inaugural year, this series recognizes lawyers who have been in practice for less than 10 years in the United States.Established in 1983, Best Lawyers is one of the oldest peer-review publications in the legal profession. The publication’s methodology is designed to capture, as accurately as possible, the consensus opinion of leading lawyers about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area. Only one lawyer is recognized as the “Lawyer of the Year” for each specialty and location.The complete list of this year’s rankings can be found on Best Lawyers’ <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bestlawyers.com/">website</a>.

Best Lawyers Names Four MoFo Attorneys “Lawyers of the Year”

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For 39 years at Morrison Foerster, Jack has handled complex, high-stakes litigation for high profile clients. Beginning with a patent infringement jury trial in 1991, he has handled many patent litigation matters. He led Nikon’s recently-settled worldwide patent litigation against its largest competitor, involving over 50 cases in five countries and covering semiconductor litigation and digital patent technologies. Although patent litigation has never been his exclusive practice area, Jack has been the lead in over 30 commercial arbitration matters arising from merger and acquisition transactions — including offering his deep experience in financial accounting disputes to determine the final purchase price. He has handled shareholder derivative cases — including a battle for control of U-Haul Corporation’s parent company in which the Nevada Supreme Court restated its standards for such litigation. Because of his skills in managing complex litigation, Jack was the lead lawyer for the executor of the estate of the founder of DHL securities, in which he oversaw the resolution of 30 other litigation cases regarding estate assets in six different countries.Jack also maintains a renowned public interest litigation practice. He is currently lead counsel in a major case challenging the conditions of detention for immigrants held by the Customs and Border Protection agency. In 2016, he served part-time as Policy Consultant to Office of the Secretary of Education. He was also co-lead counsel in Williams v. California, which added resources and improved accountability for K through 12 public schools statewide in California, and he has done hundreds of other impact and service pro bono cases.Jack served as Co-Chair of the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, was Chair of the California Commission on Access to Justice, led Californians for Legal Aid, defending public funding for legal aid organizations, was President of the Consortium for the National Equal Justice Library, and has held many positions on nonprofit boards. He is a member of many committees of the American Bar Association on public service and representation of indigent clients. He has received awards for his public interest work from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the National Center for Youth Law, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Legal Aid and Defenders Association, the State Bar of California, and other organizations.Jack is a member of the bars of California and Arizona. He served as law clerk to the Honorable William W Schwarzer, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, in 1979 and 1980. In 1980, Jack became an associate with Morrison & Foerster; he became a partner of the firm in 1984, working in the San Francisco office. From 2008 through 2012, Jack practiced in the Tokyo office, then returned to San Francisco.

Jack Londen

Senior Of Counsel

Mike advises on U.S. and international mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and other strategic transactions, including “going private” and other related-party transactions. He has advised companies, boards, and special committees, as well as investment banks, in both negotiated and contested transactions. He works with clients across a variety of industries, including in the technology, software, telecommunications, agtech, consumer, and healthcare/life sciences sectors.Mike has been ranked in numerous publications including Chambers USA, The Legal 500, and Best Lawyers in America. Clients in The Legal 500 describe Mike as “a very seasoned M&A lawyer with a depth of technical expertise.” He has been recognized for M&A by Best Lawyers in America every year since 2013, and in 2021 the publication named him a “Lawyer of the Year” for M&A. He has also been recognized in Who’s Who Legal – The International Who’s Who of Mergers & Acquisitions Lawyers.Before moving to San Francisco, he worked in the firm’s Tokyo office for four years. Prior to joining Morrison & Foerster, he worked at a Japanese law firm for two years, concentrating on cross–border transactions. He serves on the board of directors of the Japan Society of Northern California.Mike is the chair of the American Bar Association’s M&A Committee, where he also served as co-editor of the Model Tender Offer Agreement, on the editorial board for the Model Public Company Merger Agreement, and as the editor of the Annual Survey of M&A Cases. He also has served on M&A advisory boards, such as the Law360 M&A editorial board and the Thomson Reuters Accelus Business Law Partner advisory board. He is also a member of our global Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) steering committee. He is the author or co-author of numerous articles and speaks regularly on M&A and related topics. He leads efforts around the firm’s annual Key M&A Trends report, recognized as a “Top Read Article” by JD Supra Readers’ Choice Awards.

Michael G. O'Bryan

Partner

Mr. Schwartz concentrates his practice on the representation of companies in business transactions and counseling involving intellectual property and technology, including licensing, development agreements, distribution and commercialization activities, joint ventures, outsourcing, and other services arrangements. He was the founding co-head of Morrison & Foerster’s Intellectual Property Group and has served as the firm’s managing partner.Mr. Schwartz is particularly active on transactional and counseling matters relating to computers (including hardware and both open source and proprietary software), communications equipment (including smartphones and other wireless communications devices, internet television, satellites, and other communications infrastructure), semiconductors and other electronic devices, electronic commerce, and other advanced information technology. He has represented clients such as Accenture, Altera, Autodesk, Mozilla, Netflix, Palo Alto Networks, Panasonic, Red Hat, Softbank, Sprint Nextel, Visa, Whirlpool, VMware, and Yahoo, among others.Mr. Schwartz is a frequent presenter on information technology and intellectual property issues. For example, he has lectured in the MBA program at Oxford University, and was a visiting fellow of Oxford’s Centre for Socio-Legal Studies. He also served as an adjunct instructor at Stanford Law School and lectured at the University of California (Boalt Hall) School of Law, University of Southern California Computer Law Institute, Licensing Executives Society, and American Intellectual Property Law Association.Mr. Schwartz received his B.A. degree, with high honors, from Amherst College in 1976. He studied Japanese language and history from 1976 to 1977 at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan, and then worked in Tokyo and Hong Kong as a reporter and editor for the Asian edition of The Wall Street Journal from 1977 to 1980. He received his J.D. degree, with honors, in 1983 from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of The University of Chicago Law Review. Following law school, he served as a law clerk to Judge John D. Butzner, Jr., United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. He joined Morrison & Foerster in 1984 and became a partner of the firm in 1990.Representative Matters<div id="scoped-content"><ul><li>Autodesk in the technology and intellectual property aspects of various transactions.</li><li>Dexcom, a San Diego-based medical device manufacturer that markets a continuous glucose monitoring device for use by people with diabetes, in a patent licensing agreement with Abbott.</li><li>SoftBank on intellectual property aspects of its $1 billion investment in OneWeb for low Earth orbit satellites to provide global broadband access.</li><li>Palo Alto Networks in its patent cross-license with Juniper Networks relating to (among other things) network security technology. </li><li>Panasonic in its disputes and settlements with Qualcomm regarding patents relating to mobile communications equipment. </li><li>Qwest in a variety of intellectual property and information technology matters, including the intellectual property and technology aspects of Qwest’s sale of its Dex directory publishing business in a $7.05 billion leveraged buyout, Qwest’s agreements with IBM and Hewlett-Packard for the establishment and outsourcing of Internet services facilities, and Qwest’s strategic relationship with BellSouth. </li><li>Red Hat in its agreement with Microsoft for offering Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing infrastructure.</li><li>Sprint Nextel in its agreements with Qualcomm and other companies in connection with the development, licensing and deployment of technology for the next generation of Sprint Nextel’s wireless telecommunications services. </li><li>SUSE (formerly Novell) in the formation of Open Invention Network, a company formed by SUSE, IBM, Philips, Red Hat, Sony, NEC and Google to promote the Linux operating system by using an innovative model for patents and in SUSE’s dispute with The SCO Group concerning Unix-related copyrights. </li><li>Visa in its agreement with a major investment bank to establish a customized payments platform to provide differentiated experiences for merchants and cardholders.</li><li>VMware and its AirWatch subsidiary in a patent license agreement with Good Technology relating to mobile device management (MDM). </li><li>Yahoo and SoftBank, the largest shareholders of Alibaba Group (the leading PRC-based online and mobile commerce company), in the intellectual property aspects of the carve-out and restructuring of Alipay and Alibaba’s other financial services businesses.</li></ul></div>