Palo Alto
Ropes & Gray’s Palo Alto office is located at 525 University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto, just 20 minutes north of San José and 40 minutes south of San Francisco in the heart of Silicon Valley. This prime location allows our lawyers to have direct access to clients in the Valley and throughout the Bay Area.

Ropes & Gray’s Palo Alto office is located in the only high rise building in the center of town.

Lawyers in the Palo Alto office have the opportunity to work with an impressive list of clients in the following practice areas:

Intellectual Property Litigation
Our Palo Alto lawyers are primarily engaged in Intellectual Property litigation. We are currently actively involved in cases from coast to coast, as well as helping our clients to coordinate related proceedings in Canada, Europe and Asia. We practice primarily in the federal courts and before the United States International Trade Commission.

Many of our lawyers had extensive scientific and industry experience before they joined us. We work with clients in a wide variety of industries including semiconductors, internet/software, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices. Lawyers in our Palo Alto office are listed in The Best Lawyers in America and in the Chambers U.S.A. and Global rankings for Intellectual Property Litigation.

IP Corporate/Patent Prosecution
A number of our Palo Alto associates are part of the firm’s corporate IP/patent prosecution practice. See Intellectual Property & Rights Management. We are continuing to add more capacity in this area on both the engineering and life sciences sides and would be interested in discussing this practice with you in greater detail.

Private Equity Fund Formation
In 2006, we added private equity fund formation to the practices available in Palo Alto. Clients include leading venture capital funds. This practice is integrated with our fund formation practices in Boston and New York.

San Francisco
Ropes & Gray’s San Francisco office is located at One Embarcadero Center, a part of one of the premier office and retail complexes in the city, which contains more than 120 national and local shops and restaurants and movie theatres. In addition, the Ferry Building, Fisherman’s Wharf and the historic waterfront, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the exclusive stores and boutiques of Union Square, and dozens of restaurants and parks are all within walking distance of our office. This location allows associates to experience the professional advantages offered by such a setting, along with the incredible array of cultural and leisure activities this diverse city offers.

• Health Care and Life Sciences
• Private Equity and Venture Capital
• Life Sciences and Technology Companies/Securities
• Investment Management

• Corporate law
• Charitable trust law
• Health Care regulatory compliance at the state and federal levels
• Capital finance
• Managed care contracting
• Reimbursement

• prominent joint ventures among academic medical centers
• “de-mergers” separating hospitals from larger health care systems
• arbitration of managed care contract disputes
• major capital financing in the tax-exempt bond market
• day-to-day general counseling on health care matters
• acquisitions of private and non-profit hospitals
• major national quality of care initiatives

Through close collaboration with attorneys and specialists from the Health Care group resident in other offices, and by calling upon such firm-wide areas of strength as the Tax & Benefits Department, the Complex Business Litigation and Government Enforcement groups in the Litigation Department, and the Regulatory/Legislative group in our Washington, D.C., office, we are able to provide a full range of services to our West Coast health care clients.

We also apply our expertise in health care to life sciences companies, adding a dimension to counseling biotechnology and medical device clients that draws not only on our deep knowledge of the health care regulatory environment in which they must operate, but on the full-service capabilities of the firm’s Life Sciences and Intellectual Property & Rights Management Groups, which range from patent prosecutions and opinions to FDA approvals and public policy initiatives.

Private Equity and Venture Capital
Attorneys in our San Francisco general corporate practice represent private equity and venture capital firms in their investments in and acquisitions of portfolio companies.

Our San Francisco Private Equity practice has its roots in our broad and deep Private Equity expertise based in Boston and New York and interacts with the partners in this practice area in our Palo Alto office, as well. Attorneys in our private equity investing practice draw on our firm-wide tax and deal structuring expertise as well as on our corporate deal skills. This part of the practice began with the representation of the West Coast divisions of some of our East Coast clients, and continues to grow.

Recent projects have included:

• aquisition of a national restaurant chain
• investments in a number of medical device companies on behalf of a Bay Area venture fund
• investment in a leading national broadband internet service provider
• acquisition of convertible notes in Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc. on behalf of one of the leading Bay Area private equity firms
• acquisition and subsequent sale of one of the country’s leading premium pet food manufacturers
• bids for various companies across a range of industries on behalf of firm clients

Life Sciences and Technology Companies/Securities
Ropes & Gray’s Life Sciences practice focuses on general corporate work, licensing and FDA regulatory work. Working closely with newly-formed companies, entrepreneurs and investment capital managers, we view ourselves as part of their management teams.

We offer a broad range of services to investment banks and venture capital firms as well as to medical device companies and specialty pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Our attorneys have extensive experience in general corporate matters, with a particular emphasis on corporate finance, including private and public offerings of equity and debt securities, securities law, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic alliance. And in keeping with our “one firm” approach, clients benefit from the breadth and depth of our international experience touching every conceivable industry and market.

Investment Management
The Investment Management practice at Ropes & Gray is among the largest and most diversified of any U.S. law firm. Our practice encompasses all aspects of the needs of clients in the investment management industry:

• Initial organizational matters
• Regulatory compliance
• Debt and equity financing
• Other corporate transactions, including acquisitions and reorganizations

• the independent trustees of one of the ten largest mutual fund complexes in the country
• a large California-based fund group
• one of the country’s largest and most successful fixed-income managers
• various other investment advisors, hedge funds, and mutual funds