San Diego
Duane Morris LLP
Suite 900
101 West Broadway
San Diego, CA 92101-8285
USA
Phone: 619.744.2200
Fax: 619.744.2201
The San Diego office of Duane Morris provides the firm with a strong base from which to serve its expanding roster of global clients with locations and interests in Southern California and across the western United States. The lawyers in this rapidly growing office offer a comprehensive range of legal services to a variety of businesses, including start-up ventures, technology companies, manufacturers, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, real estate developers, educational institutions, financial institutions, financial fiduciaries and insurers.
Range of Services
Corporate, Securities, Mergers and Acquisitions
Duane Morris corporate attorneys advise emerging and mature companies, both public and private, on a wide variety of corporate and securities matters. The firm represents clients in all aspects of mergers and acquisitions, including investment bankers brokering deals, and companies negotiating acquisitions and involved in hostile takeovers. We also represent clients in a wide range of federal and California securities matters, including public offerings of debt or equity securities, private offerings ranging from start-up financings and initial public offerings, and offerings by limited partnerships and limited liability companies. Our attorneys are experienced in venture capital, PIPE and other forms of business and real estate financing, and private equity transactions. We work with our clients in developing and implementing creative strategies to accomplish their corporate finance and acquisition objectives.
Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
The Duane Morris Litigation Group brings a practical understanding of business issues to the table. We counsel clients on avoiding litigation and on minimizing financial exposure in the event that litigation is inevitable. Our client counseling includes contract review, evaluation of document retention policies, analysis of company literature, evaluation of employment disputes and preventive evaluation of products and company procedures.
We have a broad trial practice with emphasis on commercial litigation, franchise litigation, products liability, patent litigation, construction law and related litigation, insurance defense and professional liability. The firm's Commercial Litigation Practice encompasses all aspects of business relationships, including disputes involving the Uniform Commercial Code, contracts, business dissolutions, leveraged buyouts and other financial arrangements.
Duane Morris also provides counsel to claimants and defendants regarding all types of claims relating to personal injury, property damage and other economic and non-economic damages. We litigate for, and provide counseling to, regional, national and international clients who manufacture and/or distribute a diverse cross-section of products in a broad range of industries. Our experience includes representing clients in complex medical device, mass tort and class action litigation. Additionally, the firm handles all aspects of insurance representation, including the defense of insureds and self-insureds in litigation, the drafting of opinions regarding coverage obligations, and the filing and defense of declaratory judgment actions in state and federal courts.
Our lawyers have litigated a broad range of disputes involving complex civil matters, class actions, construction claims, employment relationships and discrimination claims, bankruptcy and insolvency matters, complex business relationships, patent and trademark disputes, theft of trade secrets, First Amendment and media claims, restrictive covenants and breach of contract. Duane Morris attorneys also draft mediation and arbitration clauses for employment contracts, joint venture agreements, licensing agreements and other commercial contracts.
Duane Morris also offers services in mediation, arbitration, conciliation and other nonjudicial means to assist clients in reaching expeditious and cost-effective dispute resolution. Our lawyers also serve as neutrals, independent arbitrators and mediators.
Business Reorganization and Financial Restructuring
Our Business Reorganization and Financial Restructuring Practice Group handles matters in the areas of creditors' rights, insolvency and bankruptcy law, commercial law, and corporate and real estate finance. The bankruptcy practice emphasizes the representation of creditors in chapter 7, chapter 11 and chapter 13 cases, as well as the representation of court-appointed trustees in chapter 7 and chapter 11 cases. Our Group also represents debtors, including publicly traded companies, in complex chapter 11 cases. We have significant experience in dealing with international insolvency matters. Many California insolvency matters require the Group's knowledge of mechanics' lien law and construction litigation matters, as well as family law and related dissolution matters. The Group's creditors' rights practice emphasizes representing lenders and borrowers in workout and restructuring of commercial loans, secured transactions, lease transactions and pursuit of creditors' remedies in commercial litigation matters.
In addition, we have a strong financial services practice. In particular, we concentrate in the areas of commercial finance and lending, real and personal property secured transactions, and Uniform Commercial Code issues. Our finance practice emphasizes representing lenders and borrowers in documenting and negotiating real and personal property loans and secured transactions, including revolving lines of credit, asset-based loans, securitized credits and construction financing.
Real Estate
Whether the client's matter involves the development of raw land, acquisition or disposition of real estate, management of a real estate portfolio or solving the inevitable and unexpected situations that arise with real estate holdings, Duane Morris' real estate lawyers can assist. We understand there is more to real estate than a site or the structures that exist on it.
Our experience includes handling the routine, everyday issues involved in real estate matters, as well as handling seemingly unsolvable dilemmas that require solid working relationships within the industry and creative understanding of the nuances of deals, regulations, profitability, leverage and liability protection. Duane Morris lawyers consistently find solutions for complex real estate issues.
Our clients include investors, corporations, developers, asset management firms, insurance companies, title companies, construction companies, property owners, financial institutions, communities, public agencies, educational institutions and others. We assist them in a number of areas, including purchases and sales, development, financing, managing real estate for corporations, workouts, environmental matters and hospitality.
Employment Law and Labor Relations
Duane Morris' lawyers represent employers of all sizes in a broad spectrum of labor and employment matters, including equal employment opportunity compliance, statutory compliance, employment termination, negotiations of labor contracts and enforcing non-competition and non-solicitation agreements. Our lawyers emphasize policies to prevent employment problems through our problem prevention programs and services, including seminars and workshops, customized training programs and employment practice audits. In addition, our lawyers represent employers in administrative and court proceedings, including bench and jury trials.
Insurance and Reinsurance Law
Duane Morris' expansion into the San Diego market gives the firm additional resources with a broader geographic reach in multiple disciplines, primarily serving the insurance industry. Attorneys in our Insurance Practice Group have been engaged in representations of insurance industry interests for many years, having served as counsel to numerous property/casualty insurance companies, life insurance companies, reinsurance companies, HMOs and PPOs, rating bureaus, captive insurers offshore and alternative market entities and guaranty associations. The firm has also represented underwriters of public offerings of insurance securities.
Our background in the industry contributes to our ability to address client concerns effectively. We have an in-depth understanding of actuarial, underwriting and policy coverage matters affecting the business and legal issues of our clients. We have handled matters affecting financial examinations, market conduct examinations, and other regulatory issues, as well as general corporate matters.
Education Law
Our attorneys in San Diego provide comprehensive education law services to all types of learning institutions, from public and private schools to vocational-technical schools to private and public colleges and universities. Our multidisciplinary team offers counsel and representation to clients in the education field in a wide range of areas, from employment and labor issues to student records and privacy claims to real estate and construction matters as well as intellectual property concerns and school governance and operations.
Our attorneys take a team approach to apply creative solutions to the complex problems of 21st century educational institutions. Issues that cannot be resolved outside the courtroom are handled by our experienced litigators in a vigorous and efficient manner in the courts or through various means of alternative dispute resolution.
Intellectual Property
Duane Morris' intellectual property (IP) lawyers recognize the importance of our clients' intellectual capital to the success of their business and understand how to uphold IP rights to increase opportunities for our clients to enhance market share. Our experience includes trademarks and copyrights, patents and brand protection, domestic and international. Members of our IP practice group have played pivotal roles in the development of IP law, and their ranks include highly trained patent attorneys with backgrounds in biosciences, materials, chemicals, polymers, electronics and telecommunications. Duane Morris' IP litigators have substantial trial experience in disputes over patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and licenses involving such intangible property.
Environmental Law
Our lawyers offer a full range of environmental services as a result of their broad range of capabilities that include long-term planning and competitive strategies to help guide our clients toward growth and profitability. Our attorneys have wide-ranging backgrounds in areas critical to environmental regulation, including the use of science in the regulatory process, groundwater issues and toxicology.
Substantive areas that we handle include air, water, drinking water, RCRA, Superfund, FIFRA, compliance with above and underground storage tanks requirements, children's health, toxic torts, brownfields and TSCA. We work closely with other Duane Morris practice groups such as Energy, Environment and Resources, Corporate, Finance,Real Estate, Business Reorganization and Financial Restructuring, and Tax to assist our clients in solving problems. In addition, our lawyers frequently coordinate their work with that of our clients' government relations consultants, including Duane Morris' affiliate, Duane Morris Government Affairs LLC.
For More Information
For more information, please contact San Diego office managing partner Christopher Celentino, hiring partner Kathryn M.S. Catherwood or any of the lawyers referenced in the Attorney Listing.