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Morrison Foerster Wins Financial Times’ Most Innovative Lawyers in Science and Technology Award

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Morrison Foerster earned recognition as one of the Financial Times’ most innovative law firms in its 2025 Innovative Lawyers...

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Morrison Foerster earned recognition as one of the Financial Times’ most innovative law firms in its 2025 Innovative Lawyers report. FT editors highlighted our work across multiple matters, reinforcing MoFo’s leadership on complex, technology-driven mandates and pro bono efforts.MoFo won the Science and Technology Practice of Law Award for our cutting-edge AI work on Stargate, a joint venture to build advanced AI infrastructure in the United States.FT researchers also commended MoFo for advising Rivian on its $4.8 billion joint venture with Volkswagen to develop software-defined vehicle platforms for groundbreaking electric vehicles, as well as our pro bono response supporting tenants affected by the Los Angeles wildfires.Honorees were recognized at an awards ceremony in New York City on December 8, 2025.The full Financial Times Innovative Lawyers 2025 report is available through the FT website. Read the report to see all honorees and learn more about the rankings.<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/ae903cb9-d87a-4e09-8cdc-0f4f9ef96e0f#awoitwkr" target="_blank">Access the full report on FT.com</a>; <a href="https://lawyersnorthamerica.live.ft.com/page/5442802/2025-winners">2025 Winners</a>.

Morrison Foerster Wins Financial Times’ Most Innovative Lawyers in Science and Technology Award

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Chris represents emerging companies, venture capital investors, and private equity firms in corporate and securities matters, including venture capital, growth equity and private equity investments, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, divestitures, restructurings, investment fund transactions, and startup counseling.Chris specializes in transactions involving high-profile, venture-backed companies in the technology industry (AI, Fintech, AR/VR, semiconductors, software). For private equity sponsors and strategic clients, he advises on complex investments for minority and controlling positions, buyouts, and portfolio company management. For entrepreneurs, he advises fast-growing, emerging companies throughout their life cycle, ranging from formation, capital raising, and corporate structuring and governance through exit.Before rejoining Morrison Foerster, Chris advised a leading global investment firm, as associate general counsel and legal director, on domestic and cross-border investment and M&A transactions in the technology industry. Leveraging that experience, Chris provides clients with creative, business-forward, and solutions-oriented advice.As a distinguished advisor, Chris has been recognized as a Rising Star by leading industry publications, including Venture Capital Journal. He is an active member of the ABA’s Private Equity and Venture Capital Committee and frequent author and speaker on investment- and M&A-related topics and trends. While at New York University School of Law, Chris was a Lederman Fellow in Law & Economics and on the executive board of the NYU Journal of Law & Business. He received his undergraduate degree in business economics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Christopher McKinnon

Partner

Ken Siegel is the managing partner of Morrison Foerster’s Tokyo oﬃce and the head of the oﬃce’s 50-attorney M&A team. Ken’s practice focuses on the representation of high-technology companies in acquisitions, joint ventures, and strategic alliances.Ken has been consistently ranked as one of the leading U.S. attorneys in Japan. Among other things, he is the only attorney rated as a “Star Individual” for M&A in Japan (the level above Band 1) by Chambers Global, having been ranked at this level for more than a dozen years (2011–2024 editions). According to Chambers Asia-Paciﬁc, Ken is “commercial and pragmatic, an incredible M&A attorney” who “deserves tremendous credit for his M&A practice” and has “outstanding acumen, experience and leadership.”In 2022, Ken was recognized by the Financial Times – receiving their Innovative Lawyers Award, as one of the most innovative attorneys in the Asia Pacific region.  He has also been recognized multiple times as in the American Lawyer – including as “Dealmaker of the Week” for his work on Hitachi’s $5 billion sale of its hard disk-drive business to Western Digital as well as for representing SoftBank in its $21.6 billion acquisition of Sprint, a transaction that was named the Global M&A Deal of the Year by The American Lawyer.Ken received his B.A. magna cum laude from Amherst College. He studied Japanese language at Stanford University’s Inter-University Center for Japanese Language in Tokyo and at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), receiving a graduate degree in International Aﬀairs. He received his J.D. degree from the University of Chicago Law School.<h4>Select Rankings</h4>Ken’s recent notable awards include:<ul><li>Most Innovative Legal Practitioner in Asia-Pacific (Financial Times Innovative Lawyers Award 2022)</li></ul><ul dir="ltr"><li>Star Individual for Japan: Corporate/M&A (Chambers Global 2024)</li><li dir="ltr">Star Individual for Japan: Corporate/M&A (Chambers Asia-Pacific 2024)</li><li>Hall of Fame for Japan: Corporate and M&A (The Legal 500 Asia Pacific 2025)</li><li>Market Leader for Japan: M&A (IFLR1000 2024)</li><li>Corporate, M&A Law, Private Equity, Private Funds and Venture Capital Law [The Best Lawyers in Japan (Recognized since 2009)]</li><li>Foreign Lawyer of the Year (Asian Legal Business (ALB) Japan Law Awards 2018)</li><li>Tokyo Managing Partner of the Year (Asian Legal Business (ALB) Japan Law Awards 2017)</li></ul>

Kenneth A. Siegel

Stephanie, Chair of the firm’s global Private Funds Group, has over 20 years of experience advising on private fund formation and operations, as well as on regulatory compliance matters. She represents U.S. domestic and global fund sponsors and institutional investors in connection with the formation of, and investments in, buyout funds, venture capital funds, secondary funds, debt funds, infrastructure funds, fund–of–funds, social impact funds and other private funds with a broad range of investment strategies. She has been described by a client as “extremely knowledgeable in the fund formation space, very good to work with and thoughtful about the needs of her clients.”Private Fund Sponsors. Stephanie represents fund sponsors and the management teams of private funds in the formation of their private funds, as well as in ongoing fund operations, including upper–tier planning, parallel and feeder fund structures, alternative and offshore vehicles, securities law matters, ERISA compliance, transfers or sales of partnership interests, including secondary transactions, and other tax and regulatory matters.She has considerable experience negotiating anchor investor arrangements, navigating cross–border fund matters, structuring co–investment and overage programs, representing firms and individual partners at the time of hire or departure (including involuntary removal), and the formation of feeder vehicles, parallel funds and special purpose vehicles. She also advises U.S. and international companies in the structuring of their corporate venture capital programs.Institutional Investors. Stephanie has advised institutional investors in hundreds of private fund formations, involving foreign and domestic funds ranging in size from $40 million to $21 billion. These investors, including state and corporate pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, universities, fund-of-funds, insurance companies, and other institutional investors, have commitments ranging from $5 million - $1 billion on a per-deal basis. Her experience includes representing significant limited partner investors in some of the largest private market funds ever raised.Investment Advisers. Stephanie advises fund sponsors and other investment advisers on the principal aspects of the Investment Advisers Act and the Dodd–Frank Act. She assists her clients in navigating the regulatory landscape, including new state and federal registration requirements, exemption eligibility, compliance programs and ongoing compliance matters.Stephanie works in the firm’s Palo Alto office and is active in the business community. Prior to joining the firm in 2005, she was a member of the fund formation group in the Palo Alto office of Cooley LLP.

Stephanie Thomas

Chair of Global Private Funds Group

Thomas Chou is the Managing Partner of Morrison Foerster’s Los Angeles office, where he advises on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and private equity and venture capital financings, with a focus on the U.S. and Asia. With more than 25 years of experience, Thomas brings deep cross-border expertise, having practiced in MoFo’s Palo Alto, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and now Los Angeles offices. During his time in Asia, he served as head and co-head of the firm’s Asia Private Equity practice for 15 years.Thomas’ clients include industry-leading emerging growth companies and a broad range of investors who fund them (traditional private equity and venture capital funds, prominent Asian family offices, the corporate/strategic investment arms of large corporates, insurance companies, and sovereign wealth funds). His broad industry coverage includes media, entertainment and gaming; CPG/food and beverage; hard tech; Fintech; biopharma, MedTech, health and wellness.Clients and outside ranking organizations routinely cite Thomas’ accomplishments:<ul><li>Thomas is “a strong advocate for his client, offering strategic and actionable advice, evaluating and clearly prioritizing the key issues in complex situations and proactively anticipating concerns from counterparties in negotiations."</li><li>“Thomas Chou is excellent in understanding the industry and leads the team in working on the same. He is very responsive and works 24 hours responding to the clients.”</li><li>“Thomas has significant experience handling complex cross–border transactions across the Asia–Pacific region. His counsel is frequently sought by global technology corporations to advise on their investments in the region. He also commands considerable respect from private equity clients.”</li><li>His clients pinpoint his “decades of venture capital experience both in the United States and in Asia,” with one noting: “He is patient, attentive to details and someone who has clearly conquered many battlefields.”</li><li>Thomas is particularly praised for his communications skills, with clients saying, “Any issues we had he would always provide a solution. He is not only interpreting regulations, but he is also commercially savvy.”</li></ul>Thomas is on the Board of the Morrison Foerster Foundation and a member of the board of directors of the Starlight Children’s Foundation.

周至恒（Thomas Chou）律师在公司业务领域非常活跃，重点处理跨境并购（中国境内外）、合资、私募股权和风险资本融资业务。他的客户包括新兴成长型公司，传统以及非传统投资者（私募股权和风险投资基金，家族办公室，公司/公司的战略投资部门，金融机构以及主权财富基金）。他的执业领域主要是技术、媒体和电信、医疗和生命科学以及消费和零售业。客户和外部评级机构都经常称赞周律师的成就：<ul><li>“周律师在处理亚太地区复杂跨境交易方面经验丰富，全球科技公司常因在该地区的投资而寻求其意见，他也广受私募股权客户推崇。”</li><li>“（周律师）资历深厚，精于各种风险投资及私募股权事宜，包括前期与后期的投资及并购，他在科技领域的经验尤其丰富。”</li><li>客户赞赏他“在美国及亚洲均有数十年风险投资经验”，并称其“非常耐心，注重细节，实战经验丰富”。</li><li>周律师的沟通技巧尤其为人所称道，他的客户指出：“不管我们出现任何问题，周律师都能提出解决方案。他不仅能准确把握法律条文，同时极具商业头脑。”</li></ul>周律师是美富亚洲私募股权业务的联席主管，也是新兴公司 + 风险投资业务组和并购业务组的活跃成员。他在上述业务领域均持续受到独立的法律行业排行榜和律师评级机构的高度认可。周律师还是星光儿童基金会的董事会成员。

Thomas Chou

Managing Partner, Los Angeles

Kira is an experienced courtroom lawyer who assists life sciences companies in high-stakes patent litigation.Kira is the head of Morrison Foerster’s Los Angeles Litigation Department, a partner in the IP Litigation Group, and a member of the firm-wide Life Sciences + Healthcare Leadership Team. She regularly serves as counsel in intellectual property lawsuits involving cutting-edge technology, including foundational antibody technology, antibody cancer immunotherapies, fusion proteins, small-molecule therapeutics, transcatheter heart valve repair and replacement devices, and genetic testing and genomics technology. Kira litigates on behalf of both patentees and defendants and has significant experience representing innovators in disputes arising out of proposed generic and biosimilar launches.    Kira has been recognized by a number of regional and national publications, including as a Litigator of the Week by The American Lawyer. In 2023, she was named a Top Healthcare Lawyer by the Daily Journal.   Kira’s approach is to gain a deep understanding not only of the technology at issue, but also of her clients’ business objectives and goals, and to work closely with her clients to build litigation and pre-litigation strategies that match those goals. As a trial lawyer, Kira is known for her levelheaded and trustworthy style, allowing client witnesses to shine through on direct examination and cutting through the noise on cross-examination.In addition to U.S. district court litigation, Kira regularly advises clients on proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, both in matters with co-pending litigation and in stand-alone PTAB proceedings. She also often coordinates global patent litigation strategy across multiple jurisdictions, including England, Ireland, Germany, and Switzerland.Kira also has experience representing clients in connection with other types of litigation and investigative matters, including antitrust litigation, contract disputes, white-collar criminal matters, complex commercial disputes, sports-related matters, and internal investigations.Kira began her legal career as a law clerk to the Honorable John M. Rogers in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Prior to joining the firm, Kira was a partner at Durie Tangri, a premier litigation boutique.Kira received her J.D. summa cum laude from Cornell Law School. She received her B.A. in classics from Ohio Wesleyan University.She is admitted to practice in California and New York.

Kira Davis

Mike focuses on mergers and acquisitions, including private and public acquisitions of technology and life sciences companies on both the buy-side and target-side, and venture capital transactions, as well as on emerging company counseling.For his M&A clients, Mike advises on domestic and cross-border deal structuring and mechanics relating to stock and asset purchases, mergers, divestitures, tender offers, joint ventures, spin-offs and restructurings.Mike also represents a number of venture capital firms, corporate venture capital divisions and emerging companies, both in the technology and life science industries, with respect to venture capital transactions, negotiations and structuring, as well as general emerging company counseling.<h4>Representative Transactions</h4><h5>Mergers and Acquisitions</h5><ul><li>Vontier Corporation in its sale of Global Traffic Technologies, LLC, a US-based leading provider of intelligent traffic management systems and solutions, to Miovision, a Canada-based traffic optimization company.</li></ul><ul><li>Era Software, an observability and log management innovator, in connection with its sale to ServiceNow (NSYE: NOW), a leading digital workflow company.</li><li>Southwest Gas Holdings, Inc. in connection with its $2 billion acquisition of Questar Pipeline, consisting of Dominion Energy Questar Pipeline, LLC, its subsidiaries, and certain associated affiliates, including Overthrust Pipeline, White River Hub, and Questar Field Services from Dominion Energy, Inc.</li></ul><ul><li>Unical Aviation Inc. and certain of the company’s affiliates in its sale to Platinum Equity, a Los Angeles-based global investment firm with more than $25 billion of assets under management. </li><li>MobileIron, Inc. in its sale for approximately $900 million to Ivanti, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise-grade intelligent IT management and security software solutions.</li><li>McAfee in its acquisition of Skyhigh Networks, Inc., a worldwide leader in the cloud access security broker (CASB) market segment.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its $1.54 billion acquisition of AirWatch, a mobile device management provider.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of Ananda Networks, a cloud-managed service that enables organizations to create their own private networks</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of AetherPal, Inc., a market leader in mobile support.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of Avi Networks, developer of an application delivery platform designed to deliver multi-cloud application services.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of BitRock, Inc. (doing business as Bitnami), a leader in application packaging solutions.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of CloudCoreo, a next-generation cloud security service.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of CloudVelox, a designer of cloud automation and optimization software.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of Desktone, Inc., a Massachusetts-based company that pioneered Desktops as a Service (DaaS), delivering desktops and applications as a cloud service.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of <a rel="noopener" target="_blank" href="https://mode.net/">Mode.net</a>, developer of a cloud-based online performance platform intended to transform the cost and convenience of private fiber.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of network analytics software firm Nyansa.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of the Mountain View-based cloud networking startup VeloCloud™ Networks, Inc.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of Veriflow Systems, provider of network security systems designed to eliminate outages and vulnerabilities in the network.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in the sale of the rights to its VMware vCloud Government Service, a FedRAMP-compliant solution that was developed in partnership between QTS and VMware to deliver cloud services to the Federal sector, to QTS Realty Trust, an international provider of data center, managed hosting, and cloud services.</li><li>VMware, Inc. in its acquisition of Wavefront, a metrics monitoring service for cloud and modern application environments.</li><li>Walmart in its acquisition of assets of <a rel="noopener" target="_blank" href="https://art.com/">Art.com</a>, the world’s largest online retailer in the art and wall décor category.</li><li>Walmart in its acquisition of Bare Necessities, an online retailer of women’s bras, swimwear, shapewear and sleepwear.</li><li>Walmart in its acquisition of Eloquii, Inc., a retailer of women’s apparel specifically designed for women size 14 and up.</li><li>Walmart and its Global eCommerce division in a strategic alliance with <a rel="noopener" target="_blank" href="https://jd.com/">JD.com</a>, China’s largest e-commerce company by revenue, in a transaction that included Walmart’s acquisition of an equity stake in <a rel="noopener" target="_blank" href="https://jd.com/">JD.com</a> valued at approximately $1.5 billion.</li><li>Walmart in its acquisition of MeMD, Inc., a multi-specialty telehealth provider.</li><li>Vendorin, LLC, an integrated payment network and supplier engagement platform, in its $90 million sale to Corcentric, Inc., a leading provider of source-to-pay and order-to-cash software and services. </li><li>Mirantis, Inc. in its acquisition of the Docker Enterprise platform business from Docker, Inc.</li><li>McKesson Corporation, a leading international healthcare services and information technology company, in its acquisitions of Vantage Oncology, LLC, a leading national provider of radiation oncology, medical oncology and integrated cancer care, and Biologics, Inc., an oncology pharmacy services company. The combined value of the two transactions is $1.2 billion.</li><li>McKesson Corporation in its acquisition of LABSCO, a privately held, Kentucky-based distributor of diagnostic equipment for community hospital labs and private office labs.</li><li>McKesson Corporation in the $130 million sale of ZEE Medical to Cintas Corporation, the publicly traded uniform and first aid products company.</li><li>McKesson Corporation in the restructuring and divestiture of McKesson’s VITAL Platform to private equity firm Comvest Investment Partners.</li><li>Intel Corporation in its acquisition of the HTML5 developer tools business of appMobi, Inc., a Lancaster, PA, company that provides development tools and cloud-based services built on HTML5, CSS and Javascript.</li><li>Intel Corporation in its acquisition of Basis Science, Inc., a wearable fitness watch company.</li><li>Intel Corporation in its acquisition of Mashery, Inc. via a reverse triangular merger.</li><li>Intel Corporation in the acquisition of a Korean computer vision company.</li><li>Intel Corporation in the asset purchase of a digital media design company.</li><li>Santen Pharmaceutical in its acquisition of InnFocus, a development stage medical device company.</li><li>RNTS Media N.V. in its acquisition of Heyzap, Inc., a mobile advertising network company based in San Francisco.</li></ul><h5>Venture Capital</h5><ul><li>Walmart in a $500 million financing and strategic alliance with New Dada, China's largest localized on-demand logistics and grocery O2O ecommerce platform.</li><li>Delivery Hero in connection with several venture capital investments.</li><li>Taiho Ventures (an investment arm of Taiho Pharmaceuticals) in its strategic investments in multiple startup companies.</li><li>Astellas Venture Management (an investment arm of Astellas Pharma) in multiple venture capital investments, including both early- and late-stage investments.</li><li>Santen Pharmaceutical in multiple venture capital investments, including both early- and late-stage investments.</li><li>Spectrum28 (an early-stage investment fund) in multiple seed investments.</li><li>Longitude Capital in multiple venture capital investments, including both early- and late-stage investments, as well as cross-border investments.</li><li>New Enterprise Associates and Oak Investment Partners as sellers and continuing shareholders in a strategic alliance between their portfolio company Lianlian Group, a China-based mobile services company, and American Express.</li><li>Snaplogic, a cloud and data integration company, in its Series A, Series B and Series C financing rounds.</li><li>DNAnexus, a provider of cloud-based genome informatics and data management, in its incorporation and Series A and Series B financing rounds.</li><li>Sight Sciences, an ophthalmic medical device company, in its Series A and Series B financing rounds.</li><li>Sugarfina, Inc., a luxury candy brand that now operates over 30 boutiques and Nordstrom shop-in-shops across North America, in its Series B Preferred Stock financing.</li></ul>

Mike Krigbaum

Whitney O’Byrne is a trial lawyer with a wide range of experience litigating complex civil, regulatory, and criminal matters. She represents clients, large and small, in disputes involving intellectual property, legal malpractice, antitrust, consumer class actions, privacy class actions, and other commercial litigation in state and federal court. Whitney has also represented individual and institutional clients in investigations conducted by the Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Reserve, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.Whitney’s substantial trial experience includes a multi-district antitrust case in the Southern District of New York, a patent trial in the Northern District of California, criminal trials in California and New York, and multiple JAMS and AAA arbitrations. Whitney is also a NITA trial skills instructor and has taught trial advocacy at multiple levels for over 10 years.Whitney most recently practiced at a premier litigation boutique, where she worked on trade secrets, legal malpractice, and class action litigations for companies ranging from early-stage startups to established technology companies. Whitney also served as a law clerk in the Eastern District of New York.Whitney was recognized as a 2021 Rising Star by Northern California Super Lawyers and has been published by Bloomberg Law. She has served on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the Barristers Club of the Bar Association of San Francisco and was a member of the Edward J. McFetridge Inn of Court.Whitney graduated from Columbia Law School, where she served as an Articles Editor of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review and was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. She earned a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude from Washington University in St. Louis.Whitney is admitted to the State Bars of New York and California.<h4>Representative Experience</h4><ul><li>Representing major healthcare company in trade secrets litigation concerning remote patient monitoring.</li><li>Representing leading online and mobile marketplace in class action litigation alleging employee misclassification.</li><li>Representation of victim and witness in connection with prosecution of Michael Avenatti for extorting Nike.</li><li>Representation of a Fortune 100 investment bank in connection with DOJ investigation.</li><li>Representation of large Japanese bank with respect investigations conducted by multiple regulators.</li><li>Representation of Argentine sports marketing agency in connection with various investigations related to FIFA corruption.</li></ul>