Cooley

Firm overview:

Global firm Cooley has 1,200 lawyers across 17 offices in the US, Asia and Europe. Since 2019, the firm has managed more than 150 trade secret matters. Noted as among a group of Silicon Valley tech specialists firms, Cooley draws on a technology and life sciences focus and strong IP and employment practices, to advise clients on noncompetition and nonsolicitation agreements and litigate cases across the US.

The firm has broad experience on transformative deals, complex IP and regulatory matters, and high-stakes litigation. Clients include innovative companies, investors, and entrepreneurs looking to protect disruptive technologies and ideas crucial to business operations.

Cooley also counsels businesses seeking to audit and strengthen their existing protections, from employment agreements to electronic storage of confidential information. The firm engages in thought leadership and publishes on the impact for companies of the US Defend Trade Secrets Act.

Team overview:

Cooley includes the co-chair of the American Bar Association’s Joint Task Force on Model Trade Secret Practice and an understanding of the emotional nature of trade secrets matters.

Adam Gershenson is co-chair of Cooley’s Issues & Appeals practice group, a leader of the firm’s artificial intelligence task force, and an adviser respected by peers on national and international trade secrets disputes. 

He has successfully led high-stakes trade secret litigations in courts across the US. Gershenson has designed programmes to protect the most valuable confidential information of some of the world’s most sophisticated companies.

Partner and Litigation Department chair Michael Attanasio in San Diego is a commercial litigator and “a capable commercial trial lawyer”, and a former US attorney. He is seen by peers to have “the gravitas” and combined with the IP team present a credible trade secrets team.

Special counsel Michael Berkovits focuses on complex litigation, white collar criminal and regulatory defence and investigations, and trade secrets protection and defence. He was the second chair attorney in a major trade secrets trial in California, securing a major defence victory for a next-generation medical device manufacturer.

Key matters:

• Michael Berkovits successfully defended a wireless medical device manufacturer in bet-the-company litigation at trial—and on appeal—against claims of trade secrets misappropriation. At trial, he conducted examinations, including of the company’s head of research and development and computer forensic experts, which were critical in establishing that the company developed its technology on its own.

The win—the difference between the company liquidating or continuing operations—was described by the trial judge as “superlative” and having “saved the company,” and was twice affirmed on appeal. Berkovits served on The Sedona Conference trade secrets drafting committee for a commentary on the application of computer forensic analysis to legal matters.

• Cooley secured a complete victory for Rappi, a Columbia-based on-demand delivery super app with seven million users across Latin America, by obtaining dismissal, on the grounds of forum non conveniens at the US District for the Northern District of California. This high-stakes trade secrets misappropriation case contested the invention and ownership of Rappi’s business model. Cooley lawyers Mike Rhodes, Patrick Gunn (now at Goodwin Procter) and Lilia Lopez led the Cooley team advising Rappi.
• Michael Berkovits defended a next-generation biotech client developing a novel therapeutic in bet-the-company litigation alleging that the client’s core technology was misappropriated from the plaintiff; and at trial, conducted examinations limiting potential inferences of misappropriation of trade secrets information.

Clients:

Phoenix Navigation Components, Pie Insurance, Pure Storage, Rappi, Rubrik.