Corporate
With a strong focus on the needs of technology companies, Skadden is widely recognized in Silicon Valley and globally for having one of the world’s elite corporate practices. Chambers noted in a recent edition that our Palo Alto office offers clients an “exceptionally well-resourced corporate group at the forefront of global M&A capability ... [with] the capacity to handle the largest and most complex transactions on behalf of domestic and international clients.”
Our full-service corporate practice covers a wide range of matters relating to mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, corporate governance, activist defense and private equity. We work closely with the firm’s offices outside the United States — particularly in Asia and Europe — and our clients benefit from our seamlessness cross-border work.
In Palo Alto, we have handled many of the largest technology transactions on record, including representing Activision Blizzard in its $69 billion acquisition by Microsoft, the largest-ever gaming industry deal and the largest-ever technology deal at its announcement in 2022. We also represented EMC Corporation in its $67 billion acquisition by Dell Inc., which is the second-largest tech deal ever completed at the time; Ansys in its $35 billion sale to Synopsys; Elon Musk in his $44 billion acquisition of X Corp; Juniper Networks in its $14 billion acquisition by Hewlett Packard; Splunk it its $28 billion sale to Cisco; and Xilinx Inc. in its $50 billion acquisition by Advanced Micro Devices. We also have handled some of the largest-ever deals between U.S. and Chinese companies.
Skadden’s Capital Markets Group also ranks highly in each annual edition of Chambers USA. Our Palo Alto team has handled numerous initial public offerings, with a strong focus on the technology industry. In addition, we have helped clients develop creative liquidity options as alternatives to traditional IPOs. Our groundbreaking corporate work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Daily Journal California Lawyer Attorneys of the Year (CLAY) awards.
Litigation
Skadden’s Palo Alto litigation attorneys represent clients in high-stakes, high-profile matters, locally and on a global scale, offering clients robust experience in government investigations and white collar crime, securities litigation and general commercial disputes. Our attorneys regularly appear in trial and appellate courts at the federal and state levels, before administrative tribunals and in arbitrations and other alternative dispute resolution proceedings. Skadden is well-positioned to help clients navigate the legal landscape when business conduct results in concurrent criminal, civil and/or administrative proceedings that require a strategically coordinated response. We are recognized routinely by The American Lawyer, Law360 and numerous other publications as one of the nation’s preeminent law firms for complex litigation. We have received a number of California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) awards for the innovative results we have achieved for our litigation clients. According to a recent edition of Chambers Global, “Skadden has a formidable litigation practice built around heavyweight New York and California teams, with further presence across key markets in Europe and Asia.
Tax
Skadden’s Palo Alto tax practice is one of the largest full-service tax practices in Silicon Valley. In coordination with our Los Angeles tax team, we represent clients in international and domestic tax controversy, transactional, compliance and other planning matters. We assist corporations, partnerships, estates, private equity funds, individuals and sovereign entities in all phases of tax counseling, litigation and planning. Our team offers high-level experience in many areas critical to technology companies, including cross-border integration and transfer pricing. We were named the 2022 Tax Firm of the Year and 2024 Transfer Pricing Firm of the Year in San Francisco and the Bay Area at International Tax Review’s Americas Awards.
Intellectual Property Litigation
We draw on decades of experience in Silicon Valley and abroad to protect what is often our clients’ most valuable asset: their intellectual property. Our attorneys have the experience and technical training critical to developing creative, forceful strategies that lead to early stage resolutions and victories at trial. Our clients call on us to resolve their patent, trade secret, copyright, trademark, IP, antitrust and related cases across a broad spectrum of industries. Many of our IP litigators are admitted to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and draw on prior careers or academic work in electrical engineering, computer hardware, software, physics and other technical areas. Members of our team also hold a variety of technical and scientific degrees.
Intellectual Property and Technology Transactions
Our intellectual property transactional team provides legal services to the world’s most sophisticated companies in connection with the acquisition, development, enforcement and commercial exploitation of intellectual property assets. We advise on joint ventures, joint development agreements, intellectual property licensing matters, technology transfers, outsourcing, open source software and other transaction-related services, as well as emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. We are innovators in the area of patent analytics and advise on strategic patent and technology portfolios. We counsel on the full range of trade secret, trademark and copyright issues and we have advised on numerous innovative IP monetization strategies.
Executive Compensation and Benefits
We regularly handle executive compensation matters resulting from mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcy reorganizations, spin-offs, public offerings and other corporate transactions. Our nationally recognized attorneys work with clients and their officers, boards and compensation committees in all facets of designing, drafting, implementing and administering executive compensation arrangements and employee benefit plans. Described in Chambers USA as a “talented bench with particular strength in the field of executive compensation,” our practice focuses on the full range of corporate, tax, securities and fiduciary issues inherent in executive compensation.
Labor and Employment
Our Palo Alto attorneys provide guidance to public and private companies, as well as individual senior executives, from a wide spectrum of industries on a broad range of labor and employment issues, including in connection with U.S. and cross-border transactions; numerous types of litigation and alternative dispute resolution matters; investigations; workplace employee policies and procedures; reductions in force; employment, consultant and severance agreements; equal pay audits; and labor relations. Skadden’s Palo Alto labor and employment team includes recognized leaders in their field. Our attorneys are frequently recognized among the Top Labor & Employment Lawyers by the Daily Journal.
