Nick Gerlach joined Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP as partner in San Francisco.

Gerlach's practice focuses on advising clients on the tax aspects of a wide range of business transactions, including structuring tax-efficient mergers, acquisitions, spin-offs, divestitures, and other restructurings for corporations, partnerships, and other pass-through entities. He also focuses on drafting and negotiating agreements related to all phases of a company's operations, including formation, acquisition, financing, and restructuring.

Gina Stassi joined Knox Ricksen LLP as counsel in Walnut Creek.

Stassi represents clients in qui tam actions for insurance fraud and unfair business practices against healthcare providers, clinics, management services organizations, and their conspirators. She has a proven track record representing clients in complex disputes, including in litigation. During her 15-year career, she has represented clients in sophisticated legal matters ranging from venture capital fund investments, management, and trademark disputes to litigation involving commercial, contractual, and employment matters.

Elizabeth N. Thompson joined Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP as partner in San Diego.

Thompson advises a broad range of clients on the negotiation and structuring of complex joint ventures in connection with the acquisition, disposition, and development of all asset types. Her representation of publicly and privately held clients on an array of corporate matters, including capital raising, debt issuance, corporate governance, equity compensation, investor relations, commercial contracts, and business combination transactions, furthers a holistic approach to accomplishing client objectives in a strategic and efficient manner. Her perspective, having previously practiced in-house for companies ranging from a start-up to a global NYSE-listed life science REIT, provides her with unique insight into client needs with respect to complex deal structuring and execution.

Eli W. Mansour joined Snell & Wilmer LLP as partner in San Diego.

Mansour counsels clients on a variety of technology transaction matters including the discovery, development, protection, licensing, and commercialization of pharmaceuticals, novel life sciences solutions and medical devices, and related intellectual property. He regularly drafts and negotiates clinical trial agreements, development, manufacturing, distribution, and complex licensing agreements and has extensive experience in device discovery agreements, joint venture agreements and technology assignments, and transfer transactions.

Hamid Namazie joined Holland & Knight LLP as partner in Los Angeles.

Namazie focuses his practice on providing counsel to lenders on syndicated and bilateral senior secured asset-based loans and cash flow loans, as well as second lien and subordinated loans, including acquisition financings, recapitalizations, refinancings, and cross-border and multicurrency lending.

Mark Spitzer joined Holland & Knight LLP as partner in Los Angeles.

Spitzer has over 30 years of wide-ranging experience in the commercial finance arena. His core client base consists of money center banks, regional commercial banks, local agencies of foreign banks, finance companies, and alternative lenders, including structured debt funds. He structures, negotiates, and documents a broad variety of finance transactions, including complex secured and unsecured syndicated credit facilities, cash flow and asset-based loans, acquisition financings, credit product portfolio sales, mezzanine investments, and multistate real estate-secured transactions. He has extensive experience in loan workout matters, including debt and equity restructurings.

Yoojin Lee joined Holland & Knight LLP as partner in Los Angeles.

Lee’s practice focuses on representing financial institutions across a wide array of industries in domestic and international secured lending transactions with an emphasis on asset-based lending. Her practice also includes syndicated credit facilities and acquisition financing, and she has experience in debtor-in-possession financings.

Jennifer J. Lee joined Jenner & Block LLP as partner in San Francisco.

A former Assistant Director in the US Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Division of Enforcement, Lee represents public and pre-IPO companies, corporate officers, financial institutions, and asset management firms in high-stakes regulatory investigations, internal investigations, and litigation. Lee brings nearly 20 years of experience as a litigator in the government and the private sector to help clients navigate government scrutiny.

Amy Simpson joined Holland & Knight LLP as partner in Los Angeles.

Simpson is a patent litigator and inter partes review (IPR) lawyer with more than two decades of experience strategically guiding technology companies in their offensive and defensive patent disputes. She has litigated high-profile cases across the United States in federal district courts and before the ITC involving a wide range of technologies, including LEDs, printers, wireless and cellular communications, software, semiconductor manufacturing, and packaging technologies. Simpson has represented clients in IPRs before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and is lead counsel on more than 50 IPRs.

Yue Joy Wang joined Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP as associate in Silicon Valley.

Wang has nearly a decade of experience in intellectual property litigation. Focusing on patent matters in district courts and before the ITC, her technical background and former career as an engineer enable her to advise clients across various products and technologies

Patrick Colsher joined Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP as partner in Silicon Valley.

Colsher focuses on intellectual property and other complex commercial litigation and counseling. A registered patent attorney with a technical background in electrical and biomedical engineering, he is frequently called upon to guide clients through their toughest IP issues. Patrick has significant trial experience, having litigated numerous patent, trade secret, and other IP cases in federal courts throughout the country and Section 337 investigations before the International Trade Commission. He has also developed a track record for success in post-grant inter partes review and covered business method review trials before the US Patent & Trademark Office, acting as lead counsel for both petitioners and patent owners in dozens of trials.

Matthew Berkowitz joined Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg LLP as partner in Silicon Valley.

Berkowitz has nearly 20 years of experience representing clients in high-stakes patent infringement disputes in federal district courts and the International Trade Commission (ITC), as well as in post-grant proceedings in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Berkowitz has argued and won numerous cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. He previously launched and spearheaded Shearman & Sterling's intellectual property litigation practice.

Jeffery McFarland joined Eisner LLP as partner in Los Angeles.

McFarland is a veteran litigator who represents entertainment clients in their high-profile, high-stakes business disputes. For nearly three decades, he has served as a dedicated advocate for clients on the talent side, including actors, producers, directors, and screenwriters, as well as studios, production companies, television networks, and video game publishers.

Jason Altieri joined Scale LLP as partner in San Francisco.

Altieri has served as general counsel and chief compliance officer in the highly regulated and complex industries of lending, mortgage, real estate investing, and insurance, including eight years as a public company general counsel and chief compliance officer at LendingClub. As a GC, he has led and overseen billions of dollars in private debt and equity fundings, fund capitalizations, consumer and business lending, public equity capital, and strategic acquisitions.

Michael J. Fisher joined Miller Barondess, LLP as associate in Los Angeles.

Fisher is a litigator with experience in state and federal court and domestic and international arbitration. He has represented clients in the entertainment, finance, and pharmaceutical industries, as well as in government enforcement proceedings.

Caitlin M. Jolley joined Miller Barondess, LLP as associate in Los Angeles.

Jolley is an experienced attorney with litigation and appellate experience at the state and federal level. She has represented clients in a myriad of industries, including automotive, finance, solar, and healthcare.

Negin Taleb was promoted to managing attorney of Shegerian & Associates in San Diego.

Taleb specializes in employment law cases, including those involving discrimination, harassment, and retaliation.

Jane Davidson joined Munck Wilson Mandala as associate in Los Angeles.

Davidson will support MWM's award-winning litigation section and the firm's growing entertainment practice. She previously worked as an associate at Larson LLP in Los Angeles.

Davidson represents a wide variety of clients in intellectual property disputes, product liability, employment law, entertainment, and real estate matters. She has an impressive record of handling litigation for trademark and copyright infringement suits for large portfolios held by music festivals, sports teams, and jewelry designers. Davidson is also known for her sound counsel on compliance with emerging privacy legislation and advises businesses on California's CCPA, and she is also a certified CIPP-US Data Privacy Professional.

A music aficionado herself, Davidson has counseled musicians and influencers on entertainment agreements, and she enjoys speaking and writing about legal issues in entertainment, social media, and privacy as well as the ethics and inclusion issues woven into those industries. Among her notable cases, Davidson was a member of a team that successfully terminated the conservatorship for a high-profile musician, and she successfully recovered dozens of domain names infringing on a famous music festival's trademarks.

Davidson is an adjunct professor at her alma mater, University of Southern California, where she teaches an undergraduate course in USC's Music Industry program focused on copyright law, record deals, music licensing, and marketing regulations.

Edward Farrell joined Stuart Kane LLP as partner in Stuart Kane LLP.

Farrell's practice focuses on civil disputes in the areas of real estate, construction, and employment. He is a seasoned litigator and trial attorney focused on representing professional individuals as well as regional, national and international entities in both California state courts and U.S. District Courts.

Andrew Martin Klimenko joined Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani as partner in San Francisco.

Klimenko is a member of the Product & General Liability, Commercial Litigation, and Trial practice groups. He has successfully defended and prosecuted a broad spectrum of matters including commercial claims, breach of contract, catastrophic personal injury and wrongful death, real estate, and professional error and omissions liability claims. He has completed more than 55 jury trials to verdict, as well as numerous binding arbitrations. Klimenko is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates ("ABOTA"). He is also a certified mediator.

Alfred W. "Chip" Sloan joined Stradling as shareholder in Los Angeles.

Sloan represents entrepreneurs and corporations in forming new entities, financings, and general corporate services. He extends his services to entertainment and production companies, as well as individuals in the entertainment, sports, and brand industries, throughout the United States, Latin America and Europe. He also advises professional athletes and teams from leagues across the globe in team contract negotiations, endorsement deal procurement, arbitration, licensing and naming rights. Since 2001 he has serviced contracts, prepared arbitration cases, and negotiated performance terms and endorsement deals for some of the sports world's biggest stars.

Sloan is the founder of TRUE Equity, a minority owned private equity group that invests in sports assets globally. TRUE Equity is positioned as the world's leading sports private equity group, with its principals having successfully executed over 50 transactions with a primary focus around assets in prominent leagues such as the NBA, NFL, MLB, as well as global motorsports properties, global football, rugby, and emerging media. He is a member of the Sports Lawyers Association and Beverly Hills Bar Associations and is admitted to practice in California state and federal courts.

Monica Bachner joined Judicate West as neutral in Los Angeles.

Appointed by Gov. Gray Davis in 2002, Bachner served on the Los Angeles County Superior Court bench for more than 20 years, presiding over a variety of cases, including commercial, employment and real property matters. Throughout her judicial tenure, Bachner served on numerous court committees, including chairing the Judicial Education Seminars Governing Committee, a group charged with creating judicial education policy and facilitating educational seminars. Bachner is affiliated with the Los Angeles office and available statewide as a mediator, arbitrator and private judge.

Adam C. Abrahms joined Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP as partner in Century City.

Abrahms provides employers with sophisticated counsel on strategic labor-management relations in both organized and nonunion operations. He guides employers through collective bargaining and other complex labor negotiations and counsels on matters related to union organizing, representation/decertification elections, corporate campaigns, unfair labor practices, and union contract administration and management.

W. Chad Shear joined Cooley LLP as partner in San Diego.

Shear represents pharmaceutical companies in high-stakes patent litigation in the U.S. and abroad. He is known globally for successfully protecting the intellectual property rights and assets of his clients in make-or-break disputes that determine returns on multibillion-dollar investments and decades of research.

Geoffrey Biegler joined Cooley LLP as partner in San Diego.

Biegler is a seasoned life sciences litigator with a particular focus on pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, including Hatch-Waxman cases, Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act (BPCIA) cases, competitor pharmaceutical and biotechnology cases, and life sciences-related post-grant proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

Travis Robert Eagan was promoted to partner of MLG Attorneys at Law in Costa Mesa.

Eagan handles a variety of cases, including automotive products liability and personal injury. In his tenure, Eagan has litigated cases against nearly every automotive manufacturer in the world and has been involved in nationwide class actions. Among his notable victories is a defamation case that resulted in a substantial trial verdict. In the upcoming year, Eagan is scheduled to take on litigation involving car manufacturers such as FCA, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Lexus, and Toyota.

Rachel A. Baker joined Everett Dorey LLP as senior associate in Irvine.

Baker specializes in general liability and business law matters. She is a registered patent attorney licensed to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Nina Golshan as associate in Pasadena

Golshan is an associate in the firm's business practice group. She has a background in complex corporate and commercial financing transactions as well as private investment fund formation and structuring. She has experience representing financial institutions and public and private companies in a broad range of industries, including software, energy, healthcare, and retail.

Justin Thompson joined BH Properties as general counsel in Los Angeles.

In private practice for more than 25 years at several of the nation's most prestigious law firms, Thompson has represented many of the industry's leading developers, investors and property owners. During his career, Thompson has been involved in a wide variety of transactions including acquisitions/dispositions, financings, development, leasing, loan restructurings, land exchanges, sale-leasebacks, and joint ventures, across all property types.

Paul Fraidenburgh joined Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP as partner in San Diego.

Fraidenburgh has tried to conclusion numerous high-stakes business disputes. He has prevailed on behalf of clients in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and at the state Supreme Court level. Paul represents clients ranging from government agencies to Fortune 100 companies across a wide range of industries, including technology, aviation, real estate, energy, sports, and entertainment.