July 18, 2012

THE RECORDER

By Amy Miller

PALO ALTO – Jones Day has added two partners in its Silicon Valley office. Criminal defense litigator Neal Stephens joins as a partner from Cooley’s Palo Alto office and is now a member of Jones Day’s corporate criminal investigations practice.

Emerging companies partner Greg Chin joins from Latham & Watkins’ Menlo Park office and is now a partner in the capital markets practice.
“We are really looking to continue building an office that helps Silicon Valley companies deal with their most pressing, highest-level problems,” said Greg Lanier, partner in charge of Jones Day’s Silicon Valley office.

“Getting companies formed and capitalized like Greg does is a first-order issue, and helping them when they are mature public companies dealing with government investigations is another high-order problem. And we’ve got two new talented people to help us with that.”
With the new arrivals, Jones Day’s Silicon Valley office now counts 53 lawyers, including 20 partners.

Stephens had been with Cooley since 2000, making partner in 2003. He defended McAfee ex-general counsel Kent Roberts and former Brocade CEO Gregory Reyes against allegations of backdating stock options. Stephens said he wasn’t looking to leave Cooley, but Jones Day’s global platform was attractive. And it didn’t hurt that he had several friends at Jones Day and had worked with Lanier in the past, including at Cooley.

“Jones Day’s focus is on representing the largest companies around the world, and given what I do with regulatory and government investigation work, it’s a very good match for me,” Stephens said.
Before joining Cooley, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Miami, where he was chief of the narcotics section and regional coordinator of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force for the Florida/Caribbean Region. He ran investigations that led to the extradition and conviction of high-level Colombian narcotics traffickers, including relatives and associates of Pablo Escobar, the former head of the Medellin drug cartel.

Chin, who represents public and private companies in cleantech, life sciences and other emerging growth industries, had been with Latham for eight years. He advised DNA sequencing company Complete Genomics Inc. in its initial public offering last November..
Before arriving at Latham in 2004, he was counsel at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, advising tech companies for almost five years.

Prior to law school, Chin worked for two years in business development for an emerging growth company in Japan and for five years, wrote a column about Silicon Valley news in Japanese.
He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1999. Attorneys at Latham declined to comment on Chin’s departure.

Chin could not immediately be reached for comment. Larry Watanabe and Ken Schwartz of Watanabe Nason & Schwartz brokered Chin’s move.