Crowell & Moring's San Francisco lawyers are winning trial attorneys. We have defended high tech and Fortune 500 clients in some of California's highest-profile litigation matters. Crowell's California lawyers have extensive courtroom experience and have tried hundreds of cases to verdict. We have the depth and experience to take any case to trial and are experienced in federal and state trial and appellate courts, with an enviable success rate. We know our clients' business and team with them to face down their toughest problems.

Crowell & Moring is unique in that we represent clients as both plaintiffs and defendants. The firm has represented well known corporations, cities, entrepreneurs, and individuals, recovering nearly $10,000,000,000 in value through litigation.

Opened with a team of highly regarded trial lawyers who joined Crowell & Moring from the litigation powerhouse, Folger Levin & Kahn LLP in 2009, our San Francisco attorneys handle diverse cases, including contract disputes, antitrust litigation, commercial class actions, multi-party environmental litigation, securities lawsuits, complex construction litigation, and insurance coverage disputes. Our matters generally involve a large number of parties and a multiplicity of factual and legal issues.

While our San Francisco office is primarily focused on litigation, we also serve the needs of clients based in California or around the world with a full-service legal practice that includes Antitrust, Commercial Litigation and Arbitration, Bankruptcy, Class Action Litigation, Construction, Corporate, Environmental, Health Care, Insurance, Intellectual Property, International, Investment Funds, Labor & Employment, Plaintiff's Litigation, Retail, and Securities Litigation.

Clients of the San Francisco office of Crowell & Moring are diverse, span a wide range of industries, and include Fortune 500 companies, start-up ventures, public service organizations, individuals and closely held businesses.

Among our 80 California attorneys, located in three offices in California, including Los Angeles and Orange County are two fellows of the American College of Trial Attorneys. We have received numerous accolades, including being named to prestigious lists, including, "The Best Lawyers in America," and the "Top 100 Super Lawyers" in California. Our California litigation team also boasts three Chambers USA ranked attorneys, two "Top Women Litigators" and three lawyers who were named "California Attorney of the Year," among other honors.

Crowell & Moring is an internationally recognized, full-service law firm. With our deep connections in Washington D.C., New York and globally, we can advise clients across the state, as well as nationally and internationally, on the wide range of issues that result from and impact their business activities.

Antitrust

Crowell & Moring's antitrust practice is among the best in the business. We represent companies looking to successfully close their most important strategic acquisitions. Our clients range from the largest multinational companies in the world, where we partner with sophisticated in-house legal departments, to technology start-up companies, where we deal directly with the business team. Our practice covers the full range of substantive and trade regulation issues, including grand jury investigations and trials; defense of civil litigation, trial and investigations; pursuit of damages in recovery actions; full-service merger and acquisition representation; and counseling on ways to manage antitrust risks, including conducting audits and sophisticated compliance training. California attorneys represent clients in civil and criminal antitrust litigation as well as in the process of seeking regulatory approval for mergers and acquisitions. We regularly counsel on cartel enforcement, monopolization, recovery actions, trade association law, the Robinson-Patman Act, the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, and compliance, enforcement and protection of intellectual property rights in relation to antitrust law.

Commercial Litigation and Arbitration

Crowell & Moring's California commercial litigators aim for and achieve efficient resolution of complex disputes in a myriad of commercial activities. We represent companies of all sizes in automotive, banking, construction, electronic, financial services, insurance, internet, manufacturing, medical, retail, retirement, telecommunications, and other industries both locally and globally. Our litigation expertise extends to pre-dispute advice, representation in trial and appellate matters in state and federal courts, arbitration, mediation, class action defense, and acting as national coordinating counsel. In many cases, we handle both the civil and the criminal aspects of the case, as well as any third layer of parallel administrative proceedings.

Creditor's Rights, Bankruptcy and Restructuring

Crowell & Moring's creditor's rights, bankruptcy and restructuring lawyers provide clients with creative and practical solutions to business problems. We deliver results in both the bankruptcy and pre-bankruptcy contexts, and focus our efforts on developing and implementing customized strategies to solve our clients' complex financial issues. We have served extensively as counselors and litigators for creditors, debtors, and other affected parties. We advise our clients on the range of issues that result from doing business with troubled companies, and have litigated matters in state and federal courts, as well as courts of appeal.

Class Action Litigation

Our litigators handle the most sophisticated class actions across a wide array of industries in both federal and state courts in California and nationwide. Our track record of success in defending class actions spans the firm's practice areas, from antitrust to healthcare and from securities to labor & employment. Our litigators have unparalleled experience defending and resolving consumer class actions in numerous industries, most notably the automotive, retail, and telecommunications industries. We are also experienced on the plaintiffs' side of class actions, representing opt-out claimants and named plaintiffs in pursuit of individual and classwide relief.

Our class action practice draws upon our deep litigation expertise coupled with our knowledge of the industries and practice areas at issue. It also frequently brings into play our national coordination management skills, in which Crowell & Moring has special expertise. We are expert in the rules, procedures and strategies involved in coordinating complex cases, through the Judicial Panel for Multi-District Litigation and otherwise, as well as other litigation coordination techniques designed to leverage favorable substantive rulings across jurisdictions and minimize duplicative discovery and litigation expense.

Construction

Our lawyers represent prime contractors, owners, design professionals and subcontractors in a wide variety of public and private construction matters. Crowell & Moring's construction practice has national scope and our lawyers routinely represent leading companies in complex legal matters in which millions of dollars are at issue. Our team of experienced construction attorneys provides counseling in the bidding and negotiation of contracts, bid protests and DBE issues, claims, environmental issues and performance problems. We have litigated cases involving issues of differing site conditions, defective specifications, constructive changes, acceleration, delay, suspension, inspection and acceptance, terminations, insurance coverage, and construction defects, among others. We are also leading proponents of ADR and serve as arbitrators and mediators. Our California Construction attorneys have participated in ADR proceedings taking place before federal and state courts, boards of contract appeals, state administrative agencies, private judges, and the American Arbitration Association.

Corporate

Our California lawyers counsel and represent clients in a wide range of transactional and corporate organization matters. These include mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property licensing, commercial contracts, corporate governance, real property leasing, joint ventures, ecommerce transactions, employment and consulting agreements and stock option plans, business formation and start-up planning, venture capital investments and securities matters. Our clients range from large public and private companies to emerging companies in a wide range of industries, and we have particular expertise in government contracts and the construction, life sciences, medical device and health care industries. More than just corporate legal advice, solid business judgment and creative problem solving underlie all of our work.

Environmental

The California Environmental Group has extensive experience in successfully litigating and trying complex, multi-party environmental matters, representing both plaintiffs and defendants. Our environmental practice includes litigating actions involving hazardous waste cleanups, personal injury and property damage claims of residents, dealing with local, state and federal agencies regarding hazardous waste, representing landowners and lessees who have encountered environmental problems, conducting environmental audits, analyzing and tracking environmental statutes and regulations, advising clients on regulatory compliance, and negotiating and documenting agreements regarding environmental matters.

Health Care

Crowell & Moring's San Francisco health care practice is made up of a team of seasoned health care attorneys whose practice is focused on representing leading health plans, health care associations and managed care organizations operating throughout California and the nation. They handle matters ranging from regulatory investigations and compliance to complex commercial litigation. The addition of the San Francisco health care practitioners in 2011 has increased the depth and reach of Crowell & Moring's strong national health care practice. Viewed as one of the leading practices in the country, Crowell & Moring provides a comprehensive range of litigation, transactional and counseling services to health care clients, including hospitals and hospital systems, payors, managed care companies, pharmaceutical companies, academic medical centers, and government contractors, and established and start-up medical device and biotech companies.

Insurance

Crowell & Moring represents more than 20 different insurance and reinsurance companies in a wide range of matters and our practice focuses on coverage litigation and client counseling and negotiations. We have litigated hundreds of coverage disputes on behalf of insurance companies in more than 35 states. Our litigation experience includes cases arising out of underlying environmental claims and underlying product liability claims involving asbestos, silica, medical devices and pharmaceuticals and includes some of the largest and most complex coverage cases in the nation. Lawyers in the San Francisco office have trial and appellate experience on these complex matters.

Intellectual Property

The California offices of Crowell & Moring provide the full array of intellectual property services to assist companies in exploiting, maintaining, and enforcing intellectual property rights. We work with some of the world’s leading automotive, entertainment and hightech firms and regularly represent and advise clients in patent, copyright, trademark and trade secret matters, both in the U.S. and internationally. Crowell & Moring regularly ranks among the top 30 patent law firms in the nation. Our lawyers advise clients on the strategic planning, protection and management of intellectual property, including matters relating to communications, computer hardware and software, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, digital content protection, media rights, data protection and privacy. We have extensive experience in matters involving intellectual property licensing, complex litigation, high-stakes trials, and international arbitration.

Investment Funds

Crowell & Moring has a vibrant and growing investment funds practice. Our clients include domestic and offshore private investment funds (including hedge funds, private equity and venture capital funds and their partners), investment advisers, funds of funds, and broker-dealers. We serve as regular outside general counsel to various clients, and as counsel for fund, regulatory, compliance, M&A, enforcement, litigation, and other matters.

We assist clients throughout every stage of the investment cycle, and our attorneys have comprehensive experience in every aspect of global private equity investment, including M&A, leveraged buyouts, private investments in public companies, cross-border transactions, consortia arrangements, joint ventures, carve-out transactions, financing and venture capital.

Labor & Employment

Crowell & Moring's California offices are home to a solid team of Labor & Employment lawyers whose experience spans a wide spectrum of legal issues, from handling complex class and individual employment litigation and providing advice on routine employment law issues, to helping address complicated labor and privacy problems. We provide California, national and international companies with sophisticated and practical answers to labor and employment issues. Our clients include companies in the technology, telecommunications, financial services, food and transportation industries.

We have extensive experience in defending clients in class actions in state and federal courts, as well as at the appellate level. We regularly represent companies in connection with large-scale class actions relating to payment of wages and classification of employees and independent contractors. Additionally, we are able to counsel and represent employers in connection with affirmative action compliance matters, including the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program's corporate management reviews and affirmative actions compliance audits. Finally, we try cases when resolution is unachievable short of trial or arbitration.

Plaintiff's Litigation

Crowell & Moring's California litigation practice is unusual in that we have had tremendous success representing both plaintiffs and defendants. On the plaintiff's side, we have represented clients in a wide variety of matters, including disputes over failed mergers, insurance coverage, apportionment of liability for environmental cleanups, dissolved partnerships, and trade secret and copyright matters. From time to time, our clients suffer substantial losses, whether as a result of antitrust cartels, patent infringement, paying excessive export duties or taxes, or injuries by acts of foreign governments. Our California plaintiff litigation team brings a wealth of experience in a broad range of industries and for a wide variety of clients. In fact, we have assisted them to recover more than $3 billion in value through litigation.

Retail

Crowell & Moring has a comprehensive retail law practice representing a broad spectrum of retail clients, including specialty retailers, department stores, and big-box retailers in California, across the United States, and internationally. Our experience encompasses a wide range of litigation and transactional services, as well as an international counseling practice. Our success is demonstrated by our clients' decisions, time and again, to call upon us for business advice and transactional expertise, and to pursue and defend against claims through litigation and alternative dispute resolution.

Securities Litigation

Lawyers in Crowell & Moring's California offices get the results clients demand in complex, high-stakes securities litigation. Our trial experience on both sides of the courtroom helps us succeed in representing clients in securities litigation as does our experience in key jurisdictions, including New York and Delaware. This experience includes civil class actions, including securities class actions, breach of fiduciary duty actions, and derivative demand actions. We represent the full gamut of securities litigation defendants including issuers, underwriters and accountants.

Pro Bono, Community Service and Diversity

Crowell & Moring has a deep commitment to community service, diversity and pro bono legal work and has been named one of the top 50, or "A-List," firms by American Lawyer, which ranks the largest 200 law firms in the U.S. as they score in a combination of areas, including diversity and pro bono legal service. The San Francisco office shares the firm's commitment. Our San Francisco office's predecessor, Folger Levin & Kahn LLP, was named in 2009, for the third consecutive year, one of the "50 Best Law Firms for Women" by Working Mother. Over half of the attorneys in our three California offices are diverse.

Crowell & Moring LLP is an international law firm with 500 lawyers representing clients in litigation and arbitration, regulatory, and transactional matters. The firm is internationally recognized for its representation of Fortune 500 companies in high-stakes litigation, as well as its ongoing commitment to pro bono service and diversity. The firm has offices in Washington, DC, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Orange County, Anchorage, London, and Brussels.

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