12/03/2008
Cooley Elects Seven New Partners
Palo Alto, Calif. – December 3, 2008 – Cooley Godward Kronish LLP today announced that it has elected seven attorneys to join the Firm’s partnership, effective January 1, 2009. The newly elected partners are: Mazda K. Antia, Wendy Davis, Erik S. Edwards, Jeffrey M. Gutkin, Chrystal N. Jensen, Bonnie Weiss McLeod and Ian O'Donnell.
"These outstanding attorneys have made significant contributions to the Firm and to their clients and we are proud to call them our partners," said Joe Conroy, chief executive officer. “I am confident they will continue to excel and further strengthen the Firm’s business and litigation practices.”
The new partners include:
Mazda K. Antia. Mr. Antia is a litigation attorney in the Firm’s San Diego office. His practice centers on healthcare litigation, complex business litigation and commercial class action litigation. Antia has both trial and appellate experience representing companies in general and complex business litigation, including consumer fraud class actions, ERISA litigation, unfair competition class actions, intellectual property disputes, regulatory inquiries and internal corporate investigations, shareholder derivative suits, antitrust matters, civil rights actions and criminal inquiries. Prior to joining the Firm, Antia served as a law clerk to the Honorable William J. Zloch, Federal District Court Judge for the Southern District of Florida. Antia received his J.D. from the Northwestern University School of Law and received a B.S. with Highest Honors, in Health Planning and Administration from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Wendy Davis. Ms. Davis is a business attorney in the Firm’s Palo Alto office. She specializes in equity and executive compensation and has extensive experience in establishing and maintaining equity compensation plans, cash bonus plans, deferred compensation arrangements and change of control agreements. She regularly negotiates executive severance, retention and employment agreements on behalf of executives and employers at all stages of the corporate lifecycle. Davis received a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School and graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania.
Erik S. Edwards. Mr. Edwards is business attorney in the Firm’s Palo Alto office. He practices general securities and corporate law, with a focus on emerging growth companies, private financings, initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions. Edwards received a J.D., cum laude, from the Santa Clara University School of Law, and a B.A. in Law and Society from the American University. He served as an extern for Judge James Ware of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.
Jeffrey M. Gutkin. Mr. Gutkin is a litigation attorney in the Firm’s San Francisco office. His practice focuses on antitrust, class action and other complex business litigation matters. Gutkin recently defended a large, national medical products manufacturer and a national computer component manufacturer in nationwide consumer class actions alleging antitrust violations. Gutkin served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel Conti, Federal District Court Judge for the Northern District of California. He received a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School where he was elected to the Order of the Coif, and a B.A., magna cum laude, from Brandeis University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Chrystal N. Jensen. Ms. Jensen is a business attorney in the Firm’s San Francisco office. She has a general business and corporate law practice, with an emphasis in security transactions, including public and private offerings, mergers and acquisitions and venture capital financings. Jensen received a J.D. from the University of Chicago and a B.S. from the University of Colorado, Boulder in Accounting and Finance.
Bonnie Weiss McLeod. Dr. McLeod is a patent prosecution attorney in the Firm’s Washington, DC, office. Her practice focuses on the biotechnology arts, including RNA interference, molecular biology, cellular biology, neurology, bacterial and eukaryotic genetics, immunology and autoimmunity, recombinant antigens and vaccines, gene therapy, genetic engineering, genomics and microarray technologies. McLeod is a graduate, magna cum laude, of the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America and was awarded her Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Maryland College Park. McLeod also completed post-doctoral work at the National Naval Medical Center in the study of molecular mechanisms of costimulatory signaling in T cells.
Ian O'Donnell. Mr. O’Donnell is a business attorney in the Firm’s San Francisco office. His practice is concentrated in the formation of domestic and international private equity and venture capital funds and the representation of such funds in public and private financing transactions. O’Donnell obtained his law degree, cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center, and his undergraduate degree, cum laude, from Yale University.
About Cooley Godward Kronish LLP
Cooley Godward Kronish’s 725 attorneys have an entrepreneurial spirit and deep, substantive experience, and are committed to solving clients’ most challenging legal matters. From small companies with big ideas to international enterprises with diverse legal needs, Cooley has the breadth of legal resources to enable companies of all sizes to seize opportunities in today’s global marketplace. The Firm represents clients across a broad array of dynamic industry sectors, including clean tech, technology, life sciences, real estate, financial services, retail and energy.
The Firm has full-service offices in major business and technology centers nationwide: Palo Alto, CA, New York, NY, San Diego, CA, San Francisco, CA, Reston, VA, Broomfield, CO, Washington, DC, Boston, MA and Seattle, WA.