Baker McKenzie, the leading global law firm, announced today the addition of five highly regarded Partners to its existing teams in California

Mark Goodman and Ethan Miller will operate out of the Firm’s San Francisco / Palo Alto office, while Robin Samuel, Barry Thompson and Joe Ward will become founding Partners of our new Los Angeles office. All five joined from another international law firm.

Colin Murray, North American Managing Partner for Baker McKenzie, said: “Our new Partners will take on significant commercial and employment litigation as well as class action cases for clients across multiple industries. We are delighted that they have chosen Baker McKenzie, and that we will be able to provide these services to our Southern California clients.”

“Given our growing presence on the West Coast, and the fact that we already had attorney teams living and working in Southern California, we are solidifying our roots in a market where many California-based Fortune 500 companies have a presence. Los Angeles is also an increasingly important gateway for our clients in Asia,” said Murray.

Michael Wagner, Baker McKenzie’s North American Chair and Global Executive Member, said, “We are thrilled to bring on board such terrific talent, experience and capabilities to strengthen the depth of our offerings to our clients, particularly in the Consumer Goods & Retail, Healthcare, and Technology, Media and Telecommunications sectors. Our new Partners are recognized leaders in their fields, which further enhances our reputation in California and across North America.”

The Firm reported global revenue growth of 5% last financial year. North America was a significant part of that success, with strong revenue gains, and a significant number of new lateral hires. We were also ranked the number one transactions Firm in terms of both cross-border and emerging market deals.

Paul Rawlinson, Global Chair, said, “The acquisition of these leading experts, and the opening of our new Los Angeles office, demonstrates that we’re evolving powerfully in continuing to meet the needs of our clients. We are excited to strengthen our position as the top global law brand, with a clear vision and purpose, and a unique culture that attracts the very best talent and reflects our confidence in North America as a growth market.”

Mark Goodman
Mark Goodman will reside in San Francisco/Palo Alto. He was an equity partner in Hogan’s San Francisco office, where he handled complex, multidistrict litigation, class actions, and tried cases in state and federal courts across the U.S. for both domestic and international clients. As a pioneer in advertising injury claims, Mark has successfully managed numerous product liability, unfair competition, fraud, and mass tort actions. He has served as lead counsel, coordinating counsel, and court-appointed liaison counsel in class actions and multidistrict litigation involving consumer products, including pharmaceuticals, food, supplements, cosmetics, and medical devices. Mark has also handled litigation in matters involving insurance coverage (including insurance bad faith), real estate, contract disputes, and intellectual property cases. His federal and state court appellate and trial experience includes cross-border litigation and landmark California cases involving trademark, trade name, and copyright disputes, as well as other intellectual property, antitrust, privacy, fraud, real estate, and sophisticated business litigation matters.

Robin Samuel
Robin Samuel will reside in Los Angeles. Robin was an equity partner in Hogan Lovell’s Los Angeles office, and led the firm’s California Labor & Employment practice. Robin handles all aspects of California and federal employment law, helping clients with complex wage and hour, discrimination and harassment, wrongful termination, breach of contract, M&A, employee raiding, and trade secret theft litigation, investigations and transactions. Robin has significant experience handling employment class actions. He also provides employment counseling and in-house training for clients. Robin served as Office Administrative Partner for Hogan’s Los Angeles office and chaired the firm’s California Diversity Committee.

Barry Thompson
Barry Thompson will reside in Los Angeles. He was an equity partner in Hogan’s Los Angeles office, where he litigated and tried complex commercial, class action, and product liability cases in federal and state court, with a particular focus on life sciences matters. Serving as national, regional, and local counsel, he defended manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and medical devices in many high-profile litigations. He also served as national trial counsel in, among other cases, prominent life sciences mass torts and catastrophic injury cases and regularly tries cases to verdict. Barry also has extensive strategic litigation and crisis management experience. This includes, among other things, planning, designing and presenting more than 30 focus group and mock trial exercises across a range of industries and practice areas, including class action, food products, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and commercial disputes in most major jurisdictions.

Ethan Miller
Ethan Miller will reside in San Francisco/Palo Alto. He focuses on complex commercial litigation disputes, including cross-border trade secret, unfair competition, employment (including discrimination and wrongful termination), multi-jurisdictional products liability, consumer products, class action, and complex insurance coverage and bad faith claims. In addition to his trial practice, Ethan has a broad-ranging advisory practice, representing clients in issues arising from corporate divestitures of assets and liabilities, the formation and dissolution of business entities, joint ventures, environmental compliance, cross-border data privacy protection, protection of intellectual property, cross-border enforcement of judgments, real estate lease negotiations, the factoring of contingent liabilities for non-U.S. investors, workouts, Securities and Exchange Commission investigations, and non-U.S. corporate compensation plans and labor issues arising from mergers and acquisitions and general corporate risk management issues.

Joe Ward
James (“Joe”) Ward will reside in Los Angeles. Joe has handled a broad range of high-stakes litigation, including representing large electric utilities in state and federal courts across the country, and in private mediation and arbitration proceedings. He has defended national and multinational companies in individual and class action lawsuits over the use of pharmaceuticals, tobacco, off-road vehicles, metering equipment, cosmetics, and many other consumer products. In addition, Joe has litigated numerous contract disputes and matters involving allegations of fraud, unfair business practices, catastrophic personal injury, unconstitutional discrimination, wrongful termination, trade secret misappropriation, and securities violations. Joe was a proud member of Hogan LA’s Diversity Committee.

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