November 11, 2013

LOS ANGELES DAILY JOURNAL

By Kevin Lee

PALO ALTO – Jason D. Kipnis was part of Weil team that helped Yahoo in Tumblr acquisition

A longtime Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP intellectual property expert who has advised on recent big dollar deals from Silicon Valley has jumped to a new firm.

Jason D. Kipnis has joined the Palo Alto office of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP as a partner after spending the vast majority of his legal career with Weil in Silicon Valley. He began work at WilmerHale Monday.

Kipnis has experience with both litigation and transactional work. He advises clients on the valuation, transfer and licensing of intellectual property during corporate acquisitions as well as IP-only transactions. He also prepares motions and expert witness reports, assesses patents and counsels clients in infringement lawsuits.

“Wilmer has always been on the radar screen because of their reputation in the IP community,” Kipnis said. “Once I met with them, it became really clear that the diversity of their client base, the transactional and litigation and corporate practices, it just seemed like a really good fit.”

Kipnis was part of the Weil legal team that advised Yahoo Inc. on the IP transactional provisions of the company’s $1.1 billion purchase of online blogging website Tumblr Inc., completed in June.

He also contributed to the Weil team that advised New Jersey-based Internet communications company Vonage Holding Corp. in a $130 million acquisition of Atlanta-based Vocalocity Inc. last month.

WilmerHale Palo Alto office partner-in-charge Mark D. Selwyn called Kipnis a “rare breed” because of his practice versatility.

“He’s got very, very broad expertise over a broad array of technologies,” Selwyn said. “His practice meshes with our goals and he’s an outstanding lawyer.”

Kipnis was elected to Weil’s partnership in 1999, the same year as Weil’s current Silicon Valley office managing partner Craig W. Adas. Weil hired Kipnis as an associate in 1995 from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC.
Kipnis’s move comes after Weil instituted pay cuts for certain partners and reduced associate and support staff headcount earlier this year.

Kipnis said he had decided to follow up with Solana Beach-based legal recruiter Larry Watanabe of Watanabe Nason LLC on a move to WilmerHale before Weil considered the pay and staff reductions.