Victoria Lee > DLA Piper LLP (US) > Silicon Valley, United States > Lawyer Profile

DLA Piper LLP (US) has a good spread of experience that covers high-end corporate finance transactions as well as standalone technology matters. The multi-faceted practice is spread throughout the firm’s impressive domestic network of offices, with active partners practising out of the West and East Coasts, and the central states. The lawyers are well-versed in providing support on high-end corporate mandates including SPAC mergers, IPOs and financings. Open licensing contracts, strategic relationships, outsourcing negotiations, data privacy, digital transformations and collaboration agreements all feature prominently on the agenda, with the team operating comfortably across a range of technologies, including blockchain, fintech, semiconductors, insurtech, artificial intelligence, and autonomous vehicles. The global team is also highly experienced in cross-border transactions and is co-chaired by Victoria Lee in Silicon Valley and Chicago-based Vincent Sanchez. San Diego’s Mark Lehberg is experienced in outsourcing, cloud computing and software as a service. John Gilluly in Austin is also highly active.

Hailed as ‘the utmost trusted advisors’, the group of attorneys at DLA Piper LLP (US) operates as an ‘extension of the in-house team’ with superb licensing expertise, which is ‘only matched by their business practicality’. Leading life sciences, manufacturing and technology companies rely on the group’s high level of expertise for the licensing components of major transactions, its solid skills negotiating settlement agreements, and its stand-alone licensing practice. Additionally, the firm’s global footprint provides the US licensing team with excellent capabilities to manage cross-border work. The practice is led in conjunction from San Diego, Silicon Valley and Boston by Mark Lehberg, global co-chair of the firm’s commercial contracts practice; Victoria Lee, who co-chairs the firm’s technology sector group; and Larissa Bifano, who steers the patent prosecution team, respectively. The San Diego-based Lisa Haile, who is skilled at handling mergers and acquisitions in the life sciences space as well as in strategic counseling for comprehensive life sciences patent portfolio management, is another key name.