M&A awards Legal Awards 2015 91 LEGAL awards We handle diverse corporate, commercial and structuring transactions for our clients and are known to be effective negotiators, able to close deals on favorable terms, as well as very client-service oriented. Our client base by revenue is approximately 50% from Silicon Valley/Northern California, 25% from Southern California, and 25% from all over the world, including clients from the major European and Latin American countries, Canada and Japan. We have a strong specialty in international law, and are able do business and deals in Spanish, Portuguese and sometimes French. Many of the transactions we handle are cross-border deals. We are unique in that we do many transactions in Latin America for well-known technology companies, and have deep experience working in the major markets there. The Firm also has a large startup practice focused primarily on Apps, technology/software and ecommerce companies, and we handle financing rounds and investor documents also. We manage numerous inter- national trademark portfolios, advise on many copyright issues, especially related to online content, and we counsel clients on global data/privacy issues. We have been M&A counsel in connection with various transac- tions including the sale of our German App and game developer client to Zynga, and the sale of a leading Eu- ropean online poker technology developer (based on Malta) to Bally Technologies. The Firm’s clients include Informatica, Logitech, LinkedIn, lynda.com, Box.com, APM Music, Roland U.S., and I also have represented Microsoft, Intuit, Apple, Symantec, Yahoo!, SunGard, Autodesk, Dailymotion, Mandalay Entertainment, price- grabber.com and Business Software Alliance (BSA) for many years. I was a former Chairman of the BSA and later became international policy counsel to the organization for many years, focused on Latin America. Evolution of Our Practice. Our work has evolved over the past five years in significant ways. First, whereas once we focused primarily on software/technology, increasingly we focus on ecommerce and internet issues, content and media companies, reflecting the convergence of technology and media. In addition, over the past five years, we have been involved with ever more Apps, developed generally for both Apple and Android environments, falling into our growing startup practice, where we also have developed a specialty. For App developers, we sometimes handle formation of the appropriate entity, the investor issues and documents, all trademark and domain name issues, development agreements, and Terms of Service and privacy policies. Moreover, on the technology side, where we still do a great deal of work for software publishers, and some- times large customers acquiring software and systems, so much of our focus is on SaaS and Paas (Software/ Platform as a Service), the Cloud, and the many issues that derive from Cloud computing, relating to security, data privacy, online performance (e.g., Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Information Security Agree- ments. What’s exhilarating (and sometimes daunting) about this area of practice is that we’re always learning some- thing new, and doing work on the cutting edge. Challenges We Face. Fortunately, we are small, nimble and very specialized. Moreover, our niche is hot. Our biggest challenge is the growth of in-house legal departments that sometimes displace outside counsel, as well as the proliferation of lawyers and law firms claiming to be technology, intellectual property (IP) and IT law firms, whereas our expertise used to be seen as almost unique. We still believe that we generally do it better, but don’t always get the opportunity to prove it. Add to this the downward price pressure by clients, although our focused niche practice and reputation for expertise generally helps us. Our Firm’s Approach to Client Acquisition. We have been fortunate over the past five years to be fully allocat- ed virtually all the time by serving several dozen clients who tend to remain with us over long periods of time. We have acquired most new clients based on “word-of-mouth,” either recommendations from existing clients or having individuals who leave existing clients bring us into their new companies. In the past year, one Cloud officer at a large software company took over the presidency of a well-funded startup. He engaged us at his new company. We did two large technology license deals with banks for his startup, but the startup quickly sold to one of the world’s leading technology companies. While doing those two deals, we worked with their CFO for the first time, and she soon brought us into two more technology companies where she also serves in the CFO role. I have one peripatetic client who has worked in top positions at six Silicon Valley companies, and we have been brought into each one. One can never stand still, because nothing lasts forever. Our largest client recently sold to an overseas equity fund very focused on cutting costs, so we need to be adding new clients all the time. Fortunately, we are increasingly known and respected in various geographies, and keep attracting good clients. Unique Antipiracy Background. While our practice is very transactional, historically I have focused much time and energy on running antipiracy programs in Latin America (and Asia) for the BSA, and for Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk, Symantec, Apple and others. My firm ran additional programs for the Association of American Publishers and for the predecessor of the Entertainment Software Association. As a result, we have unique experience in eliminating piracy, and continue to work to recover domain names, and remove pirate content from websites all over the world. Company: Neff Law Firm Name: Richard Neff Email:
[email protected] Web Address: http://nefflaw.com/ Address: 1600 Rosecrans Ave. Media Center, 4th Floor Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 Telephone: +1 310 321 7660