June 19, 2004

THE LOS ANGELES DAILY JOURNAL

By Lorelei Laird

SAN DIEGO – Corporate partner Scott Stanton is leaving Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich to join Morrison & Foerster’s San Diego office.

Stanton’s departure comes just two months after three litigation partners, including former firm chairman Don Rushing, also jumped from Gray Cary to Morrison & Foerster.

Stanton started in his new firm’s 222-attorney corporate section July 16, bringing with him associate Laura Sand and several clients, including software companies Kintera Inc. and Cogent Inc., which is launching an initial public offering.

Stanton was not available for comment late Friday.

Among his recent high-dollar deals is a $49 million acquisition by client Wireless Services Inc., which bought High Technology Services Inc. in early January.

Last year, he represented Invitrogen Inc., one of the largest biotechnology firms in the area, in a $350 million debt offering, and he helped JNI Inc., a computer hardware company, acquire Applied Micro Circuits Corp. in a $190 million deal.

In 2003, he assisted Kintera with a $40 million initial public offering.

“We’re obviously delighted to have someone as successful as Scott join our group here,” said Jay de Groot, who heads the corporate law section of Morrison & Foerster’s San Diego office. “He’s actually a perfect complement to our existing practice” in high technology and life sciences.

Morrison & Foerster’s clients include Digerad Corp., Lindows Inc. and biotechnology company Forward Ventures.

Stanton is the fourth partner to leave Gray Cary’s San Diego office since May, when Rushing and litigation partners Mark Zebrowski and James Huston left for Morrison & Foerster’s 130-lawyer litigation practice.

Terry O’Malley, chairman and chief executive officer of Gray Cary, said the departure does not affect his firm’s major San Diego corporate clients, which include Qualcomm, Jack in the Box and biotech giant Invitrogen.

“We continue to have the leading corporate practice in San Diego,” O’Malley said. “Scott Stanton was a product of that, not the cause.”

Legal recruiter Lawrence S. Watanabe of Watanabe Nason & Seltzer, who recruited Stanton for the position, described the attorney as a rising star in San Diego County corporate law.

Morrison & Foerster is working actively to increase its four-year-old San Diego County presence, Watanabe said. De Groot said the firm hopes to expand from its current 50 attorneys in the San Diego area to 80-to-100 attorneys before 2007.

Stanton attended Stanford University and the University of California, Davis, School of Law. He was admitted to the bar in 1993.