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Richard H. Frank is a partner in the Cooley Litigation department. He joined the Firm in 1989, and chairs the firm's International Employment practice group.
After being resident in Cooley's San Francisco office for 20 years, Mr. Frank relocated to Zürich, Switzerland in 2011. From Switzerland, he advises European and U.S. clients on various U.S. legal matters. He works closely with and serves as a local point of contact for Cooley clients and business contacts located or doing business in Switzerland and other parts of Europe.
Mr. Frank's legal practice focuses on U.S. and cross-border employment law and general business litigation, concentrating on the representation of life sciences and technology companies, and high net-worth individuals. His practice includes pre-litigation counseling for clients in areas such as executive employment and separation agreements, employee hiring, discipline and separations, staff reorganizations and reductions-in-force, sexual harassment investigations, consultant and independent contractor agreements, employment practices and policies, and trade secrets protection. He advises companies on international employment issues, including setting up new offices and hiring employees globally, and mergers and acquisitions.
Mr. Frank's practice also includes representing clients in litigation in the areas of wrongful termination, discrimination, sexual harassment, whistleblower retaliation, trade secrets, restrictive covenants and contracts. Mr. Frank has represented clients in arbitration and mediation proceedings, and before state and federal agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and New York State Division of Human Rights.
Mr. Frank's work has included:
- Defending a public life sciences company against whistleblower retaliation claims brought by a former senior executive, in a high-profile six-week jury trial in California Superior Court, which resulted in a negotiated resolution during jury deliberations.
- Defending a leading Internet marketing company against sex harassment claims based on allegations of serious misconduct against senior company executives, in California Superior Court, which resulted in a favorable settlement.
- Winning numerous motions for summary judgment, in state and federal courts, including summary judgment on behalf of a public software company against age discrimination claims in federal district court.
- Representing a public software company in trade secrets litigation against a competitor who hired several of the client's senior executives, resulting in an early favorable settlement.
- Representing Applied Materials, Cisco, NVIDIA, eBay and Siebel Systems (acquired by Oracle) on global employment matters in connection with numerous acquisitions and other matters.
- Representing the founders and executive team of BlueLithium in its acquisition by Yahoo! for $300 million.
From 1997 to 1999 Mr. Frank served as Employment Counsel for the National Broadcasting Company in New York. He was responsible for a broad range of employment law litigation and counseling matters for NBC's operations in North America, Europe and Asia, including the Company's news, stations, cable, Internet and sports divisions.
Prior to joining Cooley, Mr. Frank served as a law clerk to the Hon. A. Andrew Hauk, Senior District Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Prior to his legal career, Mr. Frank worked for several years in the music industry in New York and Southern California.
Mr. Frank has authored articles on various employment law topics, given numerous seminars and spoken at national and international conferences on employment law issues.
Education- University of California, Hastings College of the Law
JD, 1987, cum laude, Order of the Coif - Bowling Green State University
BA Radio-Television-Film, 1984, cum laude
Court Admissions
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
- U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
- U.S. District Court, Central District of California
- U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
Admissions
Memberships
- American Bar Association
- Association of Trial Lawyers of America
- The Bar Association of San Francisco
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