Barbara Kosacz joined Kronos Bio Inc. as chief operating officer and general counsel in San Mateo.

Kosacz stepped down as chair of the global life sciences industry practice at Cooley and retired from the firm's partnership to serve as chief operating officer and general counsel at Kronos Bio Inc.
Her first day with the San Mateo-based clinical stage biopharmaceutical company was July 15.
"You reach a certain point in your life and a certain age where you do start to really think about how do I want to be spending my time. I've achieved a certain level of competency and for me, it's always been important to me to try to make an impact and I was trying to think about how do I want to continue to do that as my career, you know, at some point kind of slows down," said Kosacz.
Kosacz will continue in a consulting and advisory role at Cooley as senior counsel.
She was with Cooley for 28 years and joined its partnership in 1997. As chair of the global life sciences industry practice, she was responsible for an interdisciplinary team of over 30 lawyers. Kosacz' career in life sciences began when the patent law and corporate work her friends were doing for biotechnology companies sparked her interest.
"I found what they were working on as a young lawyer, extremely interesting and I really thought, how great it would be to be able to work with companies who were creating these incredibly novel therapies," she added. "And when I first started my career, I was working with more computer companies and that kind of thing, which was fun and interesting, but it didn't feel as compelling and so I got pulled into a couple projects for [biotechnology] companies. And I just thought, 'Wow I love this' and so I started learning as much as I could about the industry and talking to people and trying to sort of raise my hand to say 'Hey, if we have this kind of a project, I want to work on that' and then it ended up becoming a whole specialty."
At Kronos, she will handle legal matters in addition to overseeing the company's operations outside of research and development including human resources, IT, facilities, health and safety and public relations.

Sean P Ducar joined Wood, Smith, Henning & Berman LLP as senior associate in Los Angeles.

Sean Ducar's practice focuses on the defense of health care providers in medical malpractice actions. Sean also represents individuals and corporate entities in general liability and personal injury matters. Additionally, Sean is experienced in employment law matters, including the defense against claims of harassment, retaliation, and discrimination brought under FEHA, class action wage and hour complaints, and alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Sean's breadth of experience includes the representation of professional sports teams in contract disputes.

Steven R. Disharoon as managing partner - sonoma county office

Steven Disharoon specializes in matters involving complex federal and state law, government and public entity issues, intellectual property, transportation, and an array of litigated cases. He represents public entities in California on issues involving highway design, transit systems, environmental claims, and dangerous condition allegations. Steve also represents a full range of private clients, from individuals to small businesses to multi-national corporations, and has also advocated for prisoners and other marginalized groups.

Michael A. Vasquez as senior counsel

Michael Vasquez focuses his practice on products liability, professional liability, and catastrophic injury matters. He has successfully defended hundreds of products liability cases, including asbestos cases involving catastrophic injuries and damages. Mike is also known for his legal prowess in defending dentists, doctors, lawyers and real estate agents and brokers in professional liability suits, as well as non-products liability complex tort cases in California, Texas, Alaska, Hawaii and Tribal courts in Native American reservations.

Kristin C. Christensen as senior associate

Kristin Christensen focuses her practice focuses on a wide variety of complex civil litigation matters.

Tudor D. Jones as senior associate

Tudor Jones focuses his practice on complex civil litigation, including matters involving construction and professional liability, land use, business litigation, mass transit, and catastrophic injury and wrongful death. In addition to his litigation practice, Tudor also provides counsel to cannabis startups and has experience working within regulatory frameworks across multiple industries.

Daniel R. McCoy as associate

Daniel McCoy is experienced in administrative law and civil litigation.

J. Tom Boer joined Hogan Lovells as partner in San Francisco.

Boer, an environmental litigator, joined Hogan Lovells in San Francisco.
The work Hogan Lovells does in the environmental space and its strength in its regulatory and litigation practices, are what drew Boer to join the firm.
"From my perspective, it was a great opportunity. The firm just has a world-class regulatory practice including environmental law and an excellent litigation practice, which is really the intersection of what I do," said Boer. "To be able to come to a platform like that, I think really provides great advantages to my clients and will also allow me to contribute to the continued growth of Hogan Lovells' environmental practice nationwide and internationally."
He came to Hogan Lovells from Hunton Andrews Kurth, where he practiced for the last five years as a partner within the administrative law group. He also served as hiring partner for Hunton Andrews Kurth's San Francisco office.
Boer is a former trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice Environmental Enforcement Section, who entered private practice in 2008.
Prior to joining the DOJ, he was with the Office of General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington D.C., where he began his career.
"I think it is exceptionally helpful to understand how the government views environmental enforcement cases and I think it really provides me with insight in terms of how to respond to government enforcement cases, government inquiries and then [how to] work directly with the government in order to try to resolve those cases in an efficient and effective way for clients," said Boer.
Boer defends regulatory environmental enforcement actions and citizen suit actions under environmental statutes. He also assists clients in responding to catastrophic environmental incidents and site cleanup.
His clients include individuals, municipal utilities and large companies within the utilities, manufacturing and food service sectors.
Boer is Hogan Lovells' sole California partner in the environment and natural resources practice. The firm said it has 37 attorneys within the practice nationwide.
Boer's first day with Hogan Lovells was July 13.
"It's a great practice to add to the Bay area, where we've already been doing work with Bay Area clients on environmental litigation matters, but until now we've really had to leverage the resources in places like D.C. and Denver," said Clay James, Office Managing Partner for Hogan Lovells' San Francisco Office. "This really gives us an opportunity to put a premier practice in that area in the Bay Area and one that includes representing governmental entities in addition to businesses."

Nicolai M. Schwarz-Gondek joined Sidley Austin LLP in Century City.

Schwarz-Gondek focuses on private equity, mergers and acquisitions and other complex corporate transactions. He is based in Century City.

Kirstin Ault joined California Appellate Law Group LLP as counsel in Los Angeles.

Ault served in the Department of Justice for 20 years as an assistant U.S. attorney. Her practice is focused on high-end criminal appeals, appeals related to civil litigation and consulting on pre-trial, trial, and post-trial criminal litigation and sentencing. She is based in Los Angeles.

Marc David Peters joined Turner Boyd LLP as partner in Redwood City.

Peters represents clients in technology and intellectual property litigation. He is based in Redwood City.

Philip Albert joined Haynes and Boone LLP as partner in Palo Alto.

Patent prosecution veteran Philip Albert joined Haynes and Boone's intellectual property practice
group as partner.

Based in Palo Alto at the moment, Albert will join the firm's new downtown San Francisco office. Haynes and Boone has not announced the new office's opening date yet.

"It's an exciting opportunity to help Haynes and Boone expand their presence in the Bay Area and in San Francisco in particular," said Albert in a phone interview.

The opportunity to help Haynes and Boone expand its presence in San Francisco as well as the firm's depth and platform, were what drew Albert to the firm, he said.

Albert joined the firm from Davis Wright Tremaine, where he practiced for seven years. Before his stint at Davis Wright Tremaine, he spent nearly 22 years at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, where he began his career as a lawyer.

Albert was part of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and founded Galt Engineering Inc. before he went to law school. He said his background in engineering is essential to the work he does for his clients.

"[C]lients pretty much expect that I know what their technologists are talking about," he said.

A career in law was the opportunity to constantly learn about new technology and the ability to serve as a "translator between the legal sphere and the tech sphere," he said.

Today, Albert represents companies, ranging from startups to large businesses within the software sector, in patent prosecution and intellectual property transactions.

In addition to his legal practice, Albert is a member of the Court Appointed Special Advocates, and handles pro bono immigration cases.

The ability to have an early view into developing technology and ensuring clients' assets are properly protected are his favorite aspects of his practice.

"I'm asked to understand clients' business, legal issues and technology and I have to constantly merge all three of those together," he said. "Clients want to know what protections they have for their technology and also they want to know whether it makes sense to have [protections] as part of their business model.."

His first day with Haynes and Boone was July 6.

Eugenia Steele was promoted to managing attorney of TORKLAW in Los Angeles.

Steele is a senior associate, who focuses her practice on personal injury. She has handled matters related to motor vehicle accidents, products liability, sexual assault, medical malpractice and wrongful termination. She is based in Los Angeles.