The Legal 500

Within Trade secrets, tier 4

The 30-lawyer practice at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, which operates out of seven offices around the country, has achieved some notable successes in the last five years, including the successful defense of two cases involving claims of $1.3bn and $450m for Cisco Systems; and the defense of Google in a suit brought by Microsoft seeking to prevent the hiring of three prominent former Microsoft executives. Dave Tank defended Lockheed in a case in which damages of $100m were claimed for theft of ‘Section 508’ technology. The case was settled for a nominal amount. Douglas Parry in Salt Lake City assisted Kowabunga! to recapture stolen customer lists and proprietary information from the vendor of an internet marketing business and achieved a favourable settlement. Key clients of the cross-disciplinary group also include KMG America, Adeptyx Consulting and Hormel Foods. Joe Hammell, Roy Ginsburg and Gregory Tamkin are also active in this area.

Within M&A: middle-market (sub-$500m), Dorsey & Whitney LLP is a first tier firm,

Led by Matthew Knopf, Minneapolis-based law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP works with clients ranging from well-known multinationals expanding their global brands, to family-owned businesses executing exit strategies. The health care and mining sectors featured heavily on the deal list, highlights including acting as primary outside counsel to ATS Medical in its $370m sale to Medtronic and representing Mountain View Hospital in connection with the sale of a majority interest in the company to Symbion, a large healthcare company headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. The team also represented Collaborative Care Holdings, a private company based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, in its acquisition of a 49% stake in AppleCare Medical Management, a California-based private management company that creates and maintains networks of medical providers. In the large deal space, the team represented ADC Telecommunications in its pending $1.25bn sale to Tyco Electronics, a Swiss-based global provider of engineered electronic components, network solutions, specialty products and subsea telecommunications systems. Uranium One, a metal and mining company, was assisted with US law matters in the sale of an equity stake interest in excess of 51% to a Russian entity.

Within Construction (including construction litigation), tier 4

The ‘responsive’ construction team at Dorsey & Whitney LLP is ‘very well connected in the legal community, which is an asset to multi-party litigation negotiations’. It specializes in large-scale construction litigation and construction insurance, handling projects in a variety of sectors including energy, agriculture, healthcare and real estate. Recent instructions have come from Deltak (a subsidiary of Global Power), Enclos Corporation and new client Aker Solutions. In 2010 the firm successfully defended URS Corporation in around 120 separate lawsuits arising out of the 35W Bridge collapse in August 2007; the litigation (which totalled close to $500m) related to the contract between URS Corporation and the Minnesota Department of Transportation, involving the client’s ongoing fatigue study of the bridge at the time of the collapse. Co-head of the construction and design practice Jocelyn Knoll is recommended for her experience in handling both contentious and non-contentious mandates. She has an ‘excellent grasp of construction law issues and is very well organized’.