Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP's Silicon Valley office was established in 1979 and now resides in Palo Alto with 31 lawyers. With its innovative and entrepreneurial spirit, the Palo Alto office offers deep capabilities in mergers and acquisitions, corporate and securities, intellectual property litigation and transactions, labor and employment, executive compensation, and securities litigation. As a member of the larger Gibson Dunn family, we offer the full resources and experience of over 950 lawyers to meet all of our clients' needs.
Our corporate lawyers regularly advise our clients' corporate management and legal teams on a wide range of complex transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, private equity, venture capital investments, joint ventures and public and private securities offerings. Located at the epicenter of the technology industry, our Palo Alto office has advised many of the world's leading technology companies on high-profile, cross-border acquisitions and divestitures, as well as on all aspects of friendly and hostile takeovers. Our transactional clients include Cadence Design Systems, Inc., CRH plc, Hewlett-Packard Company, Intel Corporation, Intuit Inc., St. Jude Medical, Inc., THQ Inc., Thoratec Corporation and Xilinx Inc.
The depth of experience of our intellectual property group allows us to provide informed insight and expert assistance on a range of strategic litigation and transactional matters. From semiconductors and electronic gaming to wireless technology and medical devices, we represent clients in high-stakes cases throughout the United States on matters involving critical issues of patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret law. Our intellectual property transactional lawyers regularly advise clients worldwide on novel and complex technology-based transactions including technology joint ventures and strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, licenses, and outsourcing transactions involving software.
Our securities litigators have acted as lead trial counsel in a number of the biggest securities class actions and SEC enforcement matters of the current era, including representation of leading Bay Area and national companies such as Amazon.com, Hewlett Packard Company, Levi Strauss & Co., Merrill Lynch, Openwave Systems. Inc., PricewaterhouseCoopers and The Williams Companies, Inc. For many years, Northern California has led the nation in the number of securities class action suits filed each year, and our Bay Area partners are on the "short list" of lawyers who routinely are sought out to represent public companies and their directors and officers in these cases. In addition to defending federal court class actions, our Bay Area partners also handle high stakes takeover litigation, derivative suits, and regulatory investigations, including a number of recent matters involving stock option backdating that have been in the headlines over the last two years. Several of our partners have been recognized in state and national publications as leading lawyers in their field. We regularly are called upon to serve as amicus counsel for some of the nation's leading industry organizations and to speak out on securities-related and law reform topics in national conferences and publications. Our Bay Area securities litigation practice is complemented by the Firm's Business Crimes and Crisis Management groups, with whom we work closely in major matters.
We also have one of the premier labor and employment and executive compensation and benefits practices in Northern California. Our employment lawyers represent national and international companies in a range of matters including traditional labor cases arising under the National Labor Relations Act and litigation involving discrimination, wage/hour, wrongful discharge, trade secrets, and ERISA matters including state and federal class action cases.
Our compensation and benefits practice addresses an array of legal issues in the areas of equity compensation, executive and director compensation, retirement and deferred compensation plans, and health, welfare and fringe benefit plans. The clients of our labor and employment and executive compensation and benefits lawyers come from a wide range of industries including computer hardware and software, transportation, life sciences and medical devices, entertainment, finance, banking and private equity, maritime and aerospace and defense.
The Palo Alto office is committed to community service and pro bono work. Our lawyers are encouraged to form relationships in the local and global communities through pro bono legal work and other community service activities. We work closely with several non-profit organizations in the Bay Area to provide legal aid to those who require assistance. Several lawyers from the Palo Alto office were recipients in December 2006 of the Daily Journal's First Annual Pro Bono Achievement Award for their extensive work on behalf of students of the West Contra Costa County Unified School District and their parents successfully challenging the disciplinary practices of the District.
For more information, please contact Russell C. Hansen, the Partner-in-Charge of the Palo Alto office, at (650) 849-5383