The Women in Law & Leadership Summit: Silicon Valley

Dana is Associate General Counsel for SanMar Corporation, the premier supplier of wholesale imprintable apparel and accessories. She holds an LL.M. in Taxation from University of Washington School of Law and provides legal counsel and training on contracting, licensing, technology and information governance, labor and employment issues, manufacturing, ethics and regulatory compliance, local and international tax issues, corporate governance, mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy and more. She also serve as President and Advocacy Liaison for the Washington State Chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel, the largest global bar association of in-house counsel.

Karen M. Kramer has been practicing law for more than 20 years in the media and technology sectors. Her career has focused on the needs of startups and established businesses that provide information, entertainment, advertising, news, video, and other content.

Currently she serves as General Counsel of Quora. Prior to that she held in-house counsel roles at The Washington Post and TiVo Inc. Additionally, Karen has worked in private practice at a top 100 firm, serving as co-chair of the intellectual property group and a member of the firm's premiere, First Amendment team. Previously, she also co-founded and served as Managing Partner of the Silicon Valley office for a law firm focused on serving emerging technology companies and media companies of all sizes.

Karen is a frequent speaker and published author on media, copyright, trademark, Internet, and entertainment law.

Veronica M. Gray is a prominent trial attorney in Orange County, California with more than four decades of experience litigating and negotiating employment issues for her clients. She chairs Nossaman’ s Employment Practice Group and represents employers throughout California, as well as meeting their out-of-state needs. Ms. Gray provides counseling, advice, and litigation services to privately-held companies and public entities in a broad array of employment and labor related matters including defending class actions related to wage and hour, and defending sole plaintiff wrongful terminations, discrimination, and harassment actions. Ms. Gray also prosecutes and defends unfair competition and trade secret matter. Advice and counsel include labor related issues, data breach/cybersecurity, executive employment agreements and benefits, severance and separation agreements, leave laws, reductions in force, record retention, e-discovery, audits, and social media. What distinguishes Ms. Gray is her strategic creative approach in addressing her clients’ needs and resolutions that are smart and effective. Ms. Gray has not only mastered the nuances of employment law, but is skilled in bet the company cases. She thrives on tough cases and knows how to win.

Ms. Gray counsels employers on how to execute workplace standards that both contribute to the overall stability of their organizations and comport with state and federal laws. Ms. Gray’s experience runs the gamut of strategizing and negotiating to agency hearings, mediation, arbitration, and trials on an administrative, federal and state level. Ms. Gray leads a team of accomplished litigators, with a track record of success in high profile cases. Her team regularly counsels clients and appears before state and federal agencies such as the DLSE, DOL, FEHA, EEOC, and PERB.

Over the span of Ms. Gray's career, she has taken on leadership roles in many professional and philanthropic organizations on a local and international level with a focus on micro-enterprise and children's education. Ms. Gray is also a passionate photographer and her remote travel has allowed her to capture the striking close-up images of indigenous people world-wide (www.veronicagrayphotography.com). She has donated her photography to many non-profits to support their fund raising efforts and her work has been on display at the Chapman University School of Law and the Peter Blake Gallery in Orange County, in Orange Coast Magazine, and at the FotoCare Gallery and the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in New York.

A high-performing, effective trainer and mentor, Ms. Gray regularly presents to public agencies, privately- held companies, and industry groups on employment topics and industry trends impacting employers in addition to leading the Firm’s annual Employment Law Update series. She has been recognized for her work by Los Angeles magazine as a Southern California "Super Lawyer" in Employment & Labor and included in OC Metro magazine’s annual list of “Top Attorneys” as one of the region’s top-rated Employment lawyers. She is AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rated by Martindale-Hubbell.

Jill Yamagiwa is currently Corporate Counsel for Symphony Talent, a company headquartered in New York which provides talent acquisition technology solutions and services. Previously, she spent several years at Microsoft supporting the tax and subsidiary groups, Xbox Live, and Office, and was also Senior Counsel for Blue Nile.  She is a graduate of Seattle University School of Law and lives in Seattle with her husband and two children.

Alicia is a key member of executive team at Echelon Corporation. She currently oversees and manages all domestic and international Legal, HR and IR matters, including corporate and Board governance; SEC and other regulatory compliance; M&A and strategic transactions; IP asset creation and management; customer and channel strategies and agreements; recruiting, employment, organizational development, compensation and benefits, and international issues; litigation management; corporate processes, tools and trainings; and department budget definition and management.

Prior to Echelon she served as General Counsel and Strategic Consultant at Strategic Legal Solutions, as VP of Business Development and General Counsel at Extreme Networks, as well as VP and General Counsel at AristaSoft and Adaptec Inc. She has earned her AB in International Relations from Stanford University and her J.D. from University of California School of Law.

Saina Shamilov’s national practice focuses on patent and other intellectual property litigation and counseling. She has experience with all aspects of litigation including summary judgment, trial and appeal. She has successfully represented clients in various jurisdictions around the country including Northern District of California, Central District of California, District of Delaware, and Eastern District of Texas. She has also represented clients in Section 337 investigations instituted by the U.S. International Trade Commission and represented petitioners and patent owners in front of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Saina has been repeatedly recognized as a Rising Star by Northern California Super Lawyers. In 2015, Saina was honored by the Silicon Valley Business Journal as one of Silicon Valley’s most influential women. Saina was also recognized as an Outstanding Volunteer by the Bar Association of San Francisco's Justice & Diversity Center in 2016 for her pro bono work.

Prior to attending law school, Saina was a software engineer. Her technical background allows her to effectively understand her clients’ technologies and translate difficult technical issues into arguments that are understandable and compelling to the judge or jury. She has developed a record of establishing early defense strategies that drive early settlements or dismissals with non-practicing entities. Saina has successfully represented clients in various technological fields including networking and telecommunications, e-commerce and Internet-related technologies, software engineering, computer architecture, CRM systems and database management.

In 2014, Saina was a second-chair trial counsel for Zillow and Adchemy winning a defense verdict in the Western District of North Carolina against competitor LendingTree. After a five weeks trial, the jury found that Zillow and Adchemy did not infringe the asserted patents and the patents were invalid.

Saina was a trial counsel for Amazon.com winning a defense jury verdict in Delaware in Cordance v. Amazon.com in which two of the three asserted patents were found not infringed and the third invalid.​

Janae Novotny is a partner in the law firm of Burke, Williams & Sorensen, LLP.  She was previously a partner at Kay & Stevens.  She has over 30 years of experience representing cities, counties, special districts, school districts, and water districts in labor relations, employment law, public agency access law, and education law.  She advises public agencies regarding all matters within the scope of bargaining, pension and retiree benefits issues under CalPERS, CERL, STRS, and local retirement systems.  She represents public agency employers through the negotiations spectrum, from planning and developing negotiations parameters based on statutory fact-finding criteria through negotiations, impasse, mediation and fact-finding hearings.  She advises MMBA employers regarding both safety and miscellaneous employee groups.

Ms. Novotny regularly advises public agencies on a wide range of labor and employment issues, including MOU interpretation; grievance responses; benefits and leaves administration, including pension benefits; coordination of FMLA, CFRA, and Workers Compensation leaves; interactive process discussions under the ADA and FEHA; interpretation and application of new laws; worker classification issues, and employee discipline and performance evaluation issues.

In addition to bargaining with all employee groups under the education employer collective bargaining statutes, she also handles certificated and classified discipline, dismissal, and layoff, including administrator reassignment and release issues; and contract management issues; and handles all Education Code personnel issues.  She is experienced in interest-based bargaining as a negotiator, trainer, and facilitator.  Ms. Novotny also advises school districts regarding board governance issues, student related issues, school district reorganization, federal and state constitutional issues.  She has handled numerous sexual harassment and other personnel investigations, grievance arbitrations, unfair labor practice hearings before PERB, and fact-finding hearings.

Ms. Novotny is a presenter at various conferences, including the CALPELRA Annual Conference, CALPELRALearn trainings, California State Association of Counties, the Association of California School Administrators, and the California School Business Officials trainings and conferences.  She contributed to the development of CALPELRA ACADEMY 9, The Impasse Process From Declaration Through Post Fact-finding (AB 646).  Ms. Novotny also conducts trainings in labor relations and interest-based bargaining, employee evaluation and discipline, sexual harassment, disability accommodation and FMLA/CFRA, and other public sector employment issues.  She is a co-author of CPER’s Pocket Guide To Factfinding, contributing author of California Public Sector Labor Relations, Labor and Employment Law Section, State Bar of California, Matthew Bender and a contributing author of Burke's annual publication, Legal Trends.

Managing Attorney and Associate General Counsel at Portland General Electric Company, Loretta has had a successful career as a transactional and regulatory lawyer for over 30 years. She has lead and completed over $1 billion dollars of transactions during her career, and made many significant regulatory gains for her company. 

Loretta attended law school in Nigeria, obtained an LLM from Harvard Law School, and is a senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum, Oregon. She worked at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C., Unocal in Los Angeles and joined PGE in 2001, becoming managing attorney in 2011. Loretta is admitted to practice law in Nigeria, California and Oregon. 

Loretta is a local and national speaker on legal issues and leadership. Loretta has served on the board of the American Corporate Counsel Association – Orange County Chapter; Dougy Center; Camp Fire Columbia; and is a member of University of Idaho, Moscow UEC Advisory Committee and Our Lady of the Lake Administrative Council.

Loretta has a 23 year PanAmerican Champion and Olympic hopeful son, EJ. She lives in Lake Oswego, Oregon. 

Karna Nisewaner is the vice president and associate general counsel for Intellectual Property, Litigation and Employment practices in the legal department at Cadence Design Systems, Inc. Her focus is on patents, license compliance/piracy, open source, and trade secrets. She joined Cadence in 2011, after tenures at Intuit, IBM and Finnegan.  She received her BSE from Princeton University in and JD from UCLA.  

Clients bring their most serious government enforcement problems to Carolyn McNiven because she is a strong client advocate, whether the matter is criminal, civil or both. Carolyn’s understanding of government decision-making is grounded in her long experience as a federal criminal prosecutor in Chicago, where Carolyn handled the most complex and sensitive white collar investigations including several high-profile prosecutions of sitting state and federal officials and corporate executives. She established and led Chicago’s health-care fraud task force, and has a deep familiarity with how the federal and state enforcement authorities analyze civil and criminal health-care matters.

As a trial attorney with a strong winning record, Carolyn is not afraid to take a case to trial where appropriate. Although Carolyn enjoys trying cases, she is particularly skilled at negotiating with enforcement authorities before charging decisions are made to optimize outcomes for her clients. While in private practice, Carolyn has represented both individuals and companies facing government enforcement action. In one year, Carolyn convinced federal prosecutors to dismiss three separate indictments. In light of her multidisciplinary health-care enforcement background, Carolyn is routinely called upon to defend individuals and companies operating in the health-care sector (providers and manufacturers), who are under criminal inquiry or may be facing a civil (False Claims Act) action.

Carolyn also counsels companies faced with sensitive legal and practical problems relating to suspected cybercrime, cybersecurity breaches, economic espionage, health-care regulatory breaches, and anti-corruption matters. Carolyn has experience in designing and operating corporate compliance programs, particularly those operating in challenging international environments, such as India, where she has spent significant time supervising compliance matters.

Clients count on Amy to move their business forward. Whether litigating a complex patent suit, or advising on a multi-faceted IP strategy, Amy incorporates an in-depth understanding of each client’s business, employees and corporate strategy into her solutions.

For her litigation practice, Amy’s ability to distill the most complicated technology across an array of fields, including telecommunications, semiconductor manufacturing, renewable energy, cloud computing, and big data, into relatable, every day concepts that has made her successful in persuading judges and juries alike. She has lead trial teams, litigated, and tried cases in state court in California, numerous District Courts, the International Trade Commission, and has briefed appeals before the 9th Circuit, the Federal Circuit, the Supreme Court of California, and the United States Supreme Court. Whether litigating patent, trade secret, or IP contract disputes, Amy strives to put herself in her client’s shoes to ensure personalized results tailored to each client’s business objectives.

Amy also provides comprehensive IP counseling on issues including trade secrets protection, employee departure investigations, freedom to operate analysis, licensing strategies, data privacy protection, and regulatory compliance. She has also conducted comprehensive patent portfolio reviews and assisted with IP corporate transactions.

In addition to her IP work, Amy devotes significant time to her pro bono work. For more than a decade, she has assisted domestic violence victims, as well as led Orrick’s Bay Area summer program that enables law clerks to be certified to argue in Family Court to obtain Temporary Restraining Orders for domestic violence clients.

Meg serves as Vice President of Legal at Shape Security, a cybersecurity company protecting the world’s largest banks, retailers, airlines, and government agencies against sophisticated fraud and AI-based attacks. Meg is responsible for all aspects of Shape’s legal affairs and compliance activities.

She is licenced by the California State Bar and the Georgia State Bar and got her J.D. from University of Pennsylvania Law School. 

Tina Patel has served as Associate General Counsel at Lab126, an Amazon subsidiary located in Sunnyvale, California, since 2011. In her current role, she oversees a team of legal professionals responsible for supporting the design, development, manufacture, marketing, and distribution of Amazon’s consumer electronic devices, including the Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV and Echo.

Prior to joining Lab126, Tina was a technology transactions partner with Shearman & Sterling in their Silicon Valley office. Tina started her career as a patent litigator with Fish & Neave (now part of Ropes & Gray) and prior to joining Shearman & Sterling, Tina had a role as in-house legal counsel for a software startup in 2000-2001.  Tina received her Bachelor of Science degree, magna cum laude, from Vanderbilt University where she graduated with majors in computer science, mathematics and philosophy.  Tina received her Juris Doctor degree with honors from Duke University School of Law.

On a personal note, Tina is originally from Florida, has lived in the Bay Area for over twenty years, is married (to another attorney) and has twin eleven year old boys.

Sabiha Chunawala is VP & Deputy General Counsel at Contentful Inc., the global leader in omnichannel content platforms. Sabiha serves as global legal advisor to the Go-to-Market (“GTM”) organizations consisting of Sales, Customer Experience, Partnerships, and Marketing and manages a global team of legal professionals focused on commercial transactions and is also responsible for Contentful’s trademark portfolio. She also leads development of foundational global policies for Contentful and is a member of Contentful’s Inclusion & Diversity Committee. Prior to Contentful, Sabiha held leadership positions at Juniper Networks, Inc. and Portal Software, Inc., later acquired by Oracle Corporation.

Outside of work, Sabiha serves as a mentor for students in the Santa Clara University School of Law: Entrepreneurship Law Clinic, Tech JD program, and ChIPs chapter. She also serves as Library Commissioner for the Town of Los Gatos Library and serves on the Board for OPEN Silicon Valley, a global network of entrepreneurs, investors and professionals that provides a platform to network, collaborate, and mentor each other in developing businesses and the laying the foundation of entrepreneurship in various fields and Iqra Fund, an NGO that establishes high quality self-sustaining school systems in the remote, mountainous regions of northern Pakistan.

Li Westerlund is the Vice President of Global IP for the Bavarian Nordic Group and has the operational responsibility to develop, define, implement and enforce the intellectual property strategies of the company. Dr. Westerlund has 25 years of experience predominantly in the sector of intellectual property-patent law, including from both US and Swedish law firms prior to joining Bavarian Nordic in 2004. Her experience includes Junior Judge in Swedish courts and legal intern at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) for the former Chief Judge Paul R. Michel. In 2004, she was appointed Professor of Law at Linkoping University in Sweden and is a prolific author in the legal field with focus on patent law having published several books and dozens of articles in professional journals and anthologies.

Lisa Barnett Sween is a Principal and Litigation Manager of the San Francisco, California, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. She represents employers in all aspects of employment law and litigation, including state and federal employment harassment and discrimination litigation, wrongful discharge litigation, FMLA, CFRA, ADA, and wage and hour litigation.

In addition to her litigation expertise, Ms. Sween regularly counsels employers on preventative employment policies and practices involving all areas of federal, state and local employment law, including recruiting and hiring, employee handbooks, leaves of absence, discipline and termination, workforce reductions, discrimination and harassment, reasonable accommodation and wage and hour. Ms. Sween has also conducted over 200 hours of harassment prevention training in various jurisdictions throughout the United States.

Ms. Sween’s counseling practice includes strategic human resources advice in preparation for mergers and acquisitions, preparing executive and other employment agreements, offer letters, proprietary information agreements, non-competition and non-solicitation agreements.

Ms. Sween has given numerous presentations on a wide variety of employment-related issues to organizations including the Northern California Human Resources Association (NCHRA), the California Employer Advisory Counsel and the American Conference Institute.

Before joining Jackson Lewis, Ms. Sween was a partner in the employment and labor group at one of California’s largest law firms, where she served as the national vice-chair and chair of the San Francisco employment department.

Christa Anderson handles complex and high-stakes business litigation for some of the country’s top corporations, including Google, SanDisk, Broadcom, American Honda, and Sutter Health. She has extensive experience in the areas of intellectual property (patent, copyright and trademark), breach of contract, antitrust, business torts and class actions.

Ms. Anderson has litigated, mediated and tried cases in federal courts around the country (including California, Texas, and Virginia), as well as in California state court.

Jennifer Lantz is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Haynes and Boone. She has more than twenty years of experience helping clients at all stages protect their brands and other IP. Jennifer focuses on helping companies develop their brands through enforcement policies, clearing their marks for use, registering marks in the U.S. and abroad, commercializing marks through licenses and merchandising agreements, assessing infringement risks, enforcing their trademark rights against others and defending them against allegations of infringement. Ranked among the top trademark lawyers in California in World Trademark Review (WTR) 1000, Globe Business Publishing Ltd., 2015-2018, Jennifer represents clients of all sizes – from new startups to multinationals.

In addition to her prosecution and counseling practice, Jennifer has an active trademark litigation practice in federal courts around the country. She has obtained preliminary injunctions on behalf of a number of trademark clients, and has also successfully defended against preliminary injunctions. Jennifer also has litigated other significant and complex intellectual property and business disputes for clients, including patent, trade secret, right of publicity, copyright, licensing, and contract disputes. Jennifer has also litigated numerous section 337 matters in the International Trade Commission.

Jennifer handles opposition and cancellation proceedings in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and regularly counsels clients regarding domain name issues and trademark issues in social media. She has also spearheaded enforcement campaigns in the United States and overseas for clients in industries where counterfeiting and knock-offs are prevalent.

Alinka has served as general counsel to publicly traded, global multinational semiconductor companies for the past 11  years, and currently is SVP, General Counsel at Israeli-based Mellanox Technologies, Ltd.  Prior to pursuing her in-house career in Silicon Valley, Alinka was in private practice litigating multi-jurisdictional product liability cases for clients as diverse as Hawaiian orchid and palm tree growers and top Fortune 500 companies.

Jennifer Miller serves as General Counsel at Loon, an Alphabet company, where she leads the worldwide legal, regulatory, policy and compliance teams.  Selected as 2017 Corporate Counsel of the Year by the Silicon Valley Business Journal, she scales companies by building talented teams, promoting collaboration, closing deals and implementing practical legal processes with a keen eye toward accelerating worldwide business growth. 

Judith Zahidis Managing Partner of the San Francisco office of Zelle LLP and co-chair of the Firm’s Antitrust group. Judith’s practice is focused on assessing complex antitrust claims and pursuing recoveries on behalf of individual corporate clients and plaintiff groups in many different industries. She has represented plaintiffs in numerous high-stakes price-fixing and monopolization cases, with recoveries from those cases totaling well over $2 billion. While Judith is involved in all aspects of the cases she litigates, she places particular emphasis on her work with industry and damages experts.

Tracy Talbot is a partner in the firm's Commercial Litigation Group, and is chair of the firm's LGBTQ Lawyer's Affinity Group, office leader for Bryan Cave Women, and co-chair of the San Francisco Recruiting Committee.  Tracy is deeply committed to increasing diversity in the legal profession, and continuously looks for opportunities to partner with clients to advance that goal. 

Tracy is a trial lawyer whose litigation practice includes complex litigation, intellectual property litigation, class action defense, and managing a team of lawyers handling large volume litigation.  Tracy has significant experience handling all phases of litigation, including initial case assessment, developing and implementing pre-trial and trial strategy, managing efficient discovery plans, engaging in dispositive motion practice, formulating expert witness strategy, and trying cases to verdict, which Tracy has done numerous times.

Tracy was an integral member of the trial team that received a multi-million dollar jury verdict in a 9-week trial for one of the best known companies in the telecommunications industry, and she was also instrumental in a 3-week jury trial representing a telecommunications company against a shareholder.  Tracy's experience encompasses defending clients against claims for intentional interference, unfair competition, noncompete and trade secret misappropriation, negligence, false advertising, and patent infringement, as well as advising and defending clients regarding claims for violations of federal and state lending laws and regulations, including FCRA, TILA, RESPA, RDCPA, and HOBR.

Tracy strives to partner with her clients to help them achieve their legal business objectives by evaluating strategic settlement options, determining whether it makes sense to try a case on the merits, or developing an innovative fee arrangement.

Brynly is General Counsel of Ripple. Before joining Ripple, Brynly advised fintech companies and held senior legal positions, including serving as General Counsel to the Small and Medium Business group at PayPal and as Senior Director of Litigation at eBay. In these roles, she led litigation teams and partnered on matters including commercial deals, M&A and IP protection. Brynly also brings extensive legal and financial experience from her previous roles at O’Melveny & Myers and Charles Schwab, as well as a clerkship under Judge Fern M. Smith (Ret.) in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Jennifer Capabianco is a Partner in Selman Breitman’s San Francisco office and is a member of the firm’s General Liability, Commercial Litigation, and Products Liability practice groups. She represents insured and private businesses, individuals, and non-profit organizations in all forms of disputes, including litigation arising from claims of professional negligence, general negligence, rental vehicle disputes, breach of contract, statutory claims, landlord-tenant disputes, fraud, invasion of privacy, discrimination, ADA violations, and all other civil disputes.

Jennifer’s clients include massage therapists and aestheticians, private health clubs, entertainment venues, and rental car companies whose defense specifically involves evaluation of contractual waiver of liability, assumption-of-the-risk clauses, and statutory issues.

Her practice also includes representation of various premises owners in claims involving personal injury and wrongful eviction. Jennifer has defended product defect claims on behalf of product manufacturers, such as manufacturers of wine bottles. Jennifer also assists insurers directly on their recovery and subrogation claims. Finally, she serves as General Counsel for the Homeless Veteran's Emergency Housing facility, providing day-to-day legal advice to assist this non-profit organization provide services to veterans in need.

Familiar with every stage of litigation, Jennifer assists with pre-claim investigation, and helps resolve problems even before claims turn in to litigation. Once litigation is commenced, Jennifer is highly skilled in directing litigation to the most economic and efficient resolution, whether that be at the pleading stage, through summary judgment, through use of the Discovery Act procedures, or settlement. Where resolution short of trial is not available, Jennifer is a skilled trial attorney whose rapport with other counsel, the bench, and jurors has led to excellent results for her clients. She works closely with general counsel, claims representatives, businesses, and individuals to ensure that the course of action taken always comports with the client's overall economic, business, and personal goals. Jennifer is a true service provider, always available to respond to questions and provide advice as needed by her clients.

Karen M. Willis is an experienced commercial real estate attorney who represents clients in the purchase, sale, leasing, financing and development of real property.

Ms. Willis handles clients’ needs nationwide from single-property deals to portfolio transactions.

Elizabeth Pappy has more than 25 years’ experience litigating all manner of business and commercial cases. She represents individuals and companies, both small and large, including high-tech manufacturers, construction companies (warranty claims, mechanics lien, employment and contract negotiations and disputes), real estate developers, gas station operators, recyclers, medical and dental practices, LLC members in disputes with other members and/or the LLC, shareholders in disputes with each other and/or the corporation, probate litigation contestants, business representation in high dollar family law cases, palimony claimants, and non-profit corporations. Her cases cover a wide array of business litigation issues that affect any and every business from the big to the small. The disputes she has handled involve contract and fraud claims that range from straightforward to complex, including partnership and shareholder disputes, manufacturing contracts, defective products, sales contracts, construction contracts, employment disputes and counseling regarding employment practices, wage and hour claims, sexual harassment training and investigations. Her work for corporate clients involves litigation of ADA-public accommodation claims including the successful trial of one such case where the plaintiff sought a $200,000 modification to the client premises, and housing discrimination defense of landlords. She successfully defended a defense verdict in favor of her client in an ADA-public accommodation case all the way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. Ms. Pappy’s background as a bankruptcy attorney also gives her the advantage of being able to counsel creditors on debtor-creditor rights issues and bankruptcy matters as well as litigate in Bankruptcy Court.

Stacie Goeddel is a California real estate attorney who represents owners, lenders and hotel brands on a wide range of mixed‐use developments. She advises on urban, residential, resort and hotel projects throughout the United States and in foreign jurisdictions, with a focus on the Caribbean and Latin American regions.

Ms. Goeddel is well-versed in all phases of real estate projects, including acquisition and disposition, finance, creation and implementation of mixed‐use legal structures, preparation of project governing and management documents, residential sale documents and registrations, and post‐completion operations.

She has extensive experience counseling hotel operators and owners on branded residential projects, including those with whole‐ownership, condominium hotel, and timeshare and vacation club components. She prepares master development and sub‐development governing documents, such as CC&Rs, reciprocal easement agreements, shared facilities agreements, cost-sharing agreements, and use and access agreements, as well as timeshare, fractional share and residence club project governing documentation, management agreements, residential purchase agreements and related sale documentation, and rental program agreements. Ms. Goeddel also assists with structuring and implementing cost-allocation methodologies for mixed-use projects. In connection with branded developments, Ms. Goeddel advises clients on licensing issues and brand protection. She also counsels on compliance with state and federal regulatory requirements in the registration, sale and marketing of residential projects, including compliance with federal securities laws. Once mixed-use developments have been completed, Ms. Goeddel guides clients on their ongoing operation and management.

In addition to counseling real estate owners and lenders, Ms. Goeddel represents financial institutions and borrowers in commercial real property and asset-based financing transactions, including the representation of lenders in connection with distressed resort and residential developments. She is experienced in the acquisition and sale of commercial real estate, with a focus in hospitality and in general corporate matters related to the acquisition, financing, development and management of commercial real property.

At Holland & Knight, Ms. Goeddel serves on the Hiring Committee for the San Francisco office and is Related Practices: Real Estate Hospitality, Resort and Timeshare Condominium Development and Conversion Real Estate Finance an active member of the firm's Pro Bono Committee.

Paula C. Kirlin is an attorney in Holland & Knight's San Francisco office and is a member of the firm's West Coast Land Use and Environment Practice Group. She practices in the areas of land use, environment, government and public law, and sustainable development. Ms. Kirlin routinely advises clients on all aspects of the local land use entitlement process in California, including due diligence, permitting and compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). In particular, she focuses on complex urban, mixed-use and transit-oriented development projects. Examples of projects for which Ms. Kirlin has provided land use diligence/entitlements and CEQA counsel include:

• multiple high-profile, mixed-use developments on the San Francisco Bay waterfront
• urban multifamily, mixed-use developments, including affordable housing, in San Francisco,
• Oakland, San Jose and throughout the Bay Area
• major commercial/office projects throughout the Bay Area and Silicon Valley
• Silicon Valley tech/research and development (R&D) headquarters
• industrial, R&D and mixed-use industrial and residential projects
• rural recreational facilities

Ms. Kirlin also has experience advising regional and local government bodies on planning and development, public-private partnerships, intergovernmental relations and agreements, the establishment and management of tax increment finance districts, and a wide range of regulatory, policy and enforcement matters.

Ms. Kirlin is active in her community and serves on the Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation Board of Directors and SPUR San Jose Policy Board, and volunteers as a mentor for the East Bay College Fund. She is a committed advocate for the human rights of refugees, asylum-seekers and immigrants. Ms. Kirlin provides pro bono legal services through The List Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies and previously served on the National Immigrant Justice Center Leadership Board. In addition, she brings a unique global perspective to her practice at Holland & Knight, having studied in Paris and spending two years teaching English in Japan as a member of the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme. As a graduate student, Ms. Kirlin also traveled to Cuba to research human rights issues and was selected to serve at the United Nations High Commissioner for Related Practices: Government Representation Public Policy & Regulation Climate Change Sustainable Development Environment West Coast Land Use and Environment Refugees in South Africa as a Middlebury Institute IPSS fellow.

Marian Vetro is Sr. Corporate Counsel, Litigation for T-Mobile USA, Inc., and is responsible for tackling many of the company’s complex litigation issues including class actions, qui tam actions, state and federal agency inquiries and investigations.   Marian has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications, mobile and technology industry and has extensive knowledge and experience in advising executive and business teams on risk mitigation opportunities consistent with business goals to solve complex legal issues. Beside her love for the law, Marian is passionate about mentoring and building future women leaders and serves as a mentor at T-Mobile and outside her organization.   She also serves as a congressional ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Association striving to find a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease.

Rachel started her career as a public defender and eventually transitioned into the tech space. She has 8+ years of commercial transactions experience as former in-house counsel for Sprout, Inc. (acquired by InMobi in 2011) and as outside general counsel for various SaaS and internet startups in the Bay Area. Currently, she is Senior Legal Counsel at Confluent, Inc.  She is well versed in negotiating, drafting and reviewing different types of contracts and agreements, from licensing, service, sales, BD, partnership, and advertising agreements to NDAs to all employee and HR related agreements to privacy policies and terms of use. She enjoys working cross-functionally with all verticals and is a jill-of-all trades, from advising exec teams on business and legal strategies to close deals for BD and sales to working with product and engineering on security, privacy, and compliance issues.