Michael D. Baird

Partner

  • Michael D. Baird
  • Phone: +1 212 404 8771

    Import to Address Book

  • Duane Morris LLP
    230 Park Avenue, Suite 1130
    New York, NY 10169-0079
    USA
  • Duane Morris LLP
    1540 Broadway
    New York, NY 10036-4086
    USA

Michael D. Baird concentrates his practice in the areas of corporate, privacy and data security, intellectual property, technology law, finance and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Baird has experience negotiating and documenting a diverse range of commercial agreements, including in-bound and out-bound data license agreements, software license agreements and professional services agreements, as well as a wide range of transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, securities offerings and debt financings. He also has experience with website terms of use, privacy and security polices and privacy audits, as well as assisting with general corporate governance matters.

Most recently and for the last three years, Mr. Baird has been on secondment to one of the firm’s most significant clients – a leading provider of financial intelligence and analytical tools – where he supported the Intellectual Property, Privacy and Tech Law Team on in-bound and out-bound software and data license agreements, among other areas.

Mr. Baird is a 2009 graduate of Columbia University School of Law, where he was a James Kent Scholar and articles editor of the Columbia Business Law Review. He earned an M.B.A. in Marketing from Villanova University and is a graduate of Princeton University.

Areas of Practice

  • Corporate and Transactional Law
  • Intellectual Property
  • Privacy Law
  • Technology Law
  • Emerging Companies

Admissions

  • New York

Education

  • Columbia Law School, J.D., 2009
    - James Kent Scholar
    - Articles Editor, Columbia Business Law Review
  • Villanova University, M.B.A., Marketing, 2006
  • Princeton University, A.B., 2003

Experience

  • Duane Morris LLP
    - Partner, 2020-present
  • Satterlee Stephens LLP
    - Partner, 2018-2020
    - Associate, 2015-2018
  • Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
    - Associate, 2009-2015

Professional Activities

  • New York City Bar Association
    - Technology, Cyber and Privacy Law Committee, 2017-2022

Selected Speaking Engagements

  • Co-presenter, "Time to Think Bigger: Finding Value in Big Data Analytics," Webcast hosted by the Knowledge Group, April 2017

  • Moderator, "Big Data: Predictive Analytics Today and Tomorrow," Legal Network International Spring 2016 Meeting

Representative Matters

  • Advised Merrick Bank on purchasing $500 million in outstanding loan participations from the GreenSky program, which arranges consumer loans for home improvement projects. Merrick Bank’s parent company, CardWorks, Inc., as part of a consortium of investors, purchased the GreenSky platform from Goldman Sachs earlier this year, and Merrick Bank obtained an option to buy additional loan participations each month for a year after the closing, which could result in additional purchases totaling $240 to $360 million.

  • Advised Cardworks, Inc., a diversified consumer finance service provider, as part of a consortium of institutional investors including Sixth Street Partners and KKR, in acquiring the GreenSky lending platform from Goldman Sachs; GreenSky, the largest U.S. lending platform for home improvement loan originations by banks, is a leading technology company that powers commerce at the point of sale, and its scalable and proprietary technology platform enables merchants to provide frictionless promotional payment options to consumers. 

  • Represented Evaxion Biotech A/S, a clinical-stage TechBio company specializing in developing AI-Immunology™ powered vaccines, in its $15 million public offering; H.C. Wainwright & Co. acted as the exclusive placement agent for the offering.