WilmerHale’s Los Angeles office was established in late 2007 to strengthen and expand the firm’s preeminent enforcement, litigation, and regulatory practices in Southern California and throughout the western United States. The Los Angeles office is built upon the firm’s guiding principles of a dedication to excellence in our legal work and our client service, a collaborative and collegial environment, diversity, and a commitment to public service.
The Los Angeles office focuses on several practice areas that are core strengths of the firm as a whole—securities enforcement defense, government investigations and white collar defense, intellectual property litigation, trial and appellate matters, and antitrust and competition. Our clients are highly diverse and include major public companies, broker-dealers and investment management firms, small and medium-sized business, corporate officers and directors, and entrepreneurs, in California and elsewhere. Because of the nature of our practices, our clients entrust us with their most significant and high-stakes matters. Each of the five Los Angeles-based partners has extensive litigation and trial experience, thus enhancing our ability to achieve the best possible results for our clients.
The Los Angeles office features the entrepreneurial spirit, camaraderie, and collegiality of a small office, backed by the capabilities and depth of a leading global firm. Our lawyers regularly work in teams with lawyers from other offices of the firm to ensure that we draw upon the expertise and resources of the entire firm. We view every client as a client of the firm, not of an individual office or lawyer, and therefore we naturally and seamlessly work with our colleagues around the world to serve the interests of our clients, wherever they may be located.
Consistent with the firm’s longstanding tradition, our clients benefit from the insights and judgment that lawyers with prior government service bring to bear. The Los Angeles office is led by the former Regional Director of the Pacific Region of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Two of our lawyers were former Assistant United States Attorneys in the Central District of California, one of whom also served as Executive Assistant United States Attorney in Los Angeles and as a state prosecutor. Additionally, nearly half of our lawyers were law clerks to federal judges.
The Los Angeles office shares the firm’s deep commitment to pro bono representation and community service. We actively encourage our lawyers to give back to the community through pro bono cases, service to the bar, and participation in charitable organizations and public institutions. Our Los Angeles lawyers have handled prisoner civil rights cases, immigration matters, domestic violence cases, environmental matters, and foster care benefits and adoptions, to give just a few examples of our pro bono contributions. Several of our lawyers serve on the boards of charitable organizations in the Los Angeles area.