Cooley Elects Six New Partners for 2013

Palo Alto, Calif. – December 3, 2012 – Cooley LLP announced today that it has elected six attorneys to join the firm's partnership, effective January 1, 2013. 

"We are extremely proud to welcome these accomplished attorneys into the partnership," said Joe Conroy, Cooley's CEO. "Individually and collectively they are immensely talented and their elevation to partner only strengthens our firm."

Cooley's New Partners

Reuben H. Chen (Palo Alto) – Mr. Chen is a technology and intellectual property litigator who focuses primarily in the area of patent litigation. He has represented clients across a wide range of technologies, including biotechnology, chemistry, electronics, emulation for integrated circuit designs, HDTV, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, Wavelength Selective Switches and Web-based technologies. He has successfully handled cases in popular patent litigation venues such as the Northern District of California, the Eastern District of Texas and the District of Delaware, as well as in alternative dispute resolution forums.  He serves on the Board of Visitors of Stanford Law School, the Board of Directors of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Silicon Valley and the Judiciary Committee of the Santa Clara County Bar Association. Mr. Chen joined Cooley after graduating in 2003 from Stanford Law School.

Jesse D. Farmer (Boston) – Dr. Farmer has extensive experience in patent procurement, portfolio management, IP due diligence and litigation in the areas of chemistry, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. He works with a wide range of companies from start-ups to established pharmaceutical/biotechnology companies in need of extensive portfolio management. Dr. Farmer, who joined Cooley in 2010, received his JD from Suffolk University Law School, magna cum laude , and  his PhD from Brown University.  Dr. Farmer was an American Cancer Society post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University and the recipient of the National Institutes of Health post-doctoral fellowship.

Mehdi Khodadad (Palo Alto) – Mr. Khodadad's practice focuses on the representation of emerging technology and life sciences companies and the venture capital and private equity firms that invest in such companies. He has counseled corporate clients, entrepreneurs and investors in a wide variety of transactions, including private and public financings, mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buy-outs and related private equity transactions, cross-border and other complex corporate transactions. As a specialist in securities and corporate law, Mr. Khodadad also regularly counsels corporate clients and investors on a wide variety of securities law and corporate governance matters. Mr. Khodadad joined Cooley in 2004 after receiving his JD from Santa Clara University School of Law, where he served as Editor in Chief of the Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal .

Joshua O. Mates (San Francisco) – Mr. Mates is a counselor and litigator in the field of employment and labor. He has handled cases in federal and California courts, as well as in alternative dispute resolution forums and before multiple state and federal administrative agencies. He regularly advises clients in a broad spectrum of human resources matters, including internal investigations, contract negotiations, wage and hour statutory compliance, leave of absence compliance, employee allegations of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination, trade secret misappropriation and unfair competition laws, developing and implementing personnel practices and procedures, and due diligence for mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Mates has practiced with Cooley since 2002 after receiving his JD from Stanford Law School.

Michael Tollini (San Francisco) – Mr. Tollini represents investment banks, commercial banks, asset-based lenders and corporations in a wide range of debt financing and capital markets transactions, with a particular emphasis on acquisition financings, syndicated bank lending and underwritten offerings of convertible notes and high yield bonds. Over the course of his career, Mr. Tollini has represented clients on debt financing transactions ranging from some of the largest leveraged buyout financings of all time to venture loans for emerging start-ups. Mr. Tollini, who joined Cooley in 2008, received his JD from Cornell Law School, where he was an articles editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy .

Amy M. Wood (San Diego) – Ms. Wood practices in the areas of executive compensation, equity compensation, employee benefits and corporate governance. Her experience includes advising companies on the compensation & benefits-related items implicated in merger and acquisition transactions and public company securities offerings, counseling public companies on the SEC's compensation-related compliance and disclosure requirements and designing and implementing equity incentive plans and employment, severance and other compensation-related arrangements. Ms. Wood also has extensive experience counseling public companies on the proxy voting guidelines of specific institutional investors and the vote recommendation policies of proxy advisory firms such as Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis on a wide variety of corporate governance matters. Ms. Wood joined Cooley in 2003 after receiving her JD, cum laude , from the University of San Diego School of Law, where she served as Editor in Chief of the San Diego Law Review .

About Cooley LLP

Cooley's 700 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 technology, life sciences, venture capital, clean energy, real estate and retail.

The firm has full-service offices in eleven major business and technology centers: Boston, MA; Broomfield, CO; Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Palo Alto, CA; Reston, VA; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; Washington, DC; and Shanghai, China.

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