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The Recorder Announces California Legal Awards Winners

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The Recorder has named Morrison Foerster the winner of the California Legal Awards’ Environmental, Social, and Governance Initiative category. Daphne Higgs was also honored as a Women Leader in Tech Law, and Roman Swoopes as a Lawyer on the Fast Track (under 40).

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The Recorder has named Morrison Foerster the winner of the California Legal Awards’ Environmental, Social, and Governance Initiative category. Daphne Higgs was also honored as a Women Leader in Tech Law, and Roman Swoopes as a Lawyer on the Fast Track (under 40).The annual awards celebrate the achievements of lawyers and companies leading technology, innovation, and the legal profession. Winners were announced at the California Legal Awards ceremony on November 3, 2022, at the JW Marriott San Francisco Union Square in San Francisco.MoFo was selected as the winner out of <a href="https://www.law.com/therecorder/2022/09/08/announcing-the-winners-and-finalists-for-the-california-legal-awards/" target="_blank">three finalists</a> in the Environmental, Social, and Governance Initiative category, reflecting MoFo’s position as a leader in ESG matters, including sustainability, social impact, and pro bono work. MoFo’s deep and abiding commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and ESG issues spans over two decades, with the firm specifically focused on environmental sustainability since 2001. Our partners are at the forefront of the industry as founding members of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, and on the boards of Ceres, Business for Social Responsibility, the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative, and the Climate Registry.Daphne Higgs, partner in MoFo’s Technology Transactions Group, is a trusted advisor to clients ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies. Daphne possesses a unique ability to tackle complex issues relating to AI, blockchain, social media, cloud offerings, open source, entertainment, and the metaverse.Roman Swoopes, partner in MoFo’s Intellectual Property Group, focuses his practice on patent and copyright litigation and counseling. He represents clients in a range of industries, including computer software, hardware, and peripherals, data storage, digital imaging, consumer electronics, music, and graphic design.View the full list of winners on The Recorder’s <a href="https://www.law.com/therecorder/2022/11/07/meet-the-winners-of-the-california-legal-awards/" target="_blank">website</a>.

The Recorder Announces California Legal Awards Winners

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Daphne Higgs is a partner in the Palo Alto office of Morrison Foerster and a member of the firm’s Technology Transactions Group.Daphne advises companies, from emerging growth through the Fortune 50, on complex commercial arrangements, intellectual property issues, and other strategic transactions, including joint ventures, cross-border strategic alliances, product/service launches, patent and technology licensing, and outsourcing.In addition, Daphne provides strategic intellectual property, privacy, and data security advice with respect to M&A, venture capital, private equity transactions, and spinouts, and she is a core member of the firm’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Steering Committee.Most of the clients with whom Daphne works are in the AI, Info-Tech, EdTech, digital assets, apparel, consumer products, entertainment, digital health, Internet of Things (IoT), Fintech, cybersecurity, semiconductor, or quantum computing space.By leveraging her background in pure mathematics and corporate law, Daphne brings a valuable business and quantitative perspective to her transactional practice. Daphne is also known for her ability to prepare plain English documents and train in-house teams in a manner that significantly reduces the contract inception-to-close timeline.Daphne is a thought leader and highly regarded speaker on legal informatics, intellectual property regimes, responsible innovation, and resource/opportunity DE&I. Daphne has received numerous recognitions of her exemplary work, including being named a Women Leader in Tech Law by The Recorder 2022 and a Women of Influence by Silicon Valley Business Journal 2023.Prior to joining Morrison Foerster, Daphne was a partner at another international law firm, where she held multiple high-level leadership roles, including member of the firm’s Partner Compensation Committee, chair of the Hiring Committee, managing partner (Palo Alto office), member of the Strategic Firmwide Leadership Selection Committee, and member of the Partner Compensation Task Force.

Daphne M Higgs

Partner

Roman Swoopes is head of the litigation department for Morrison Foerster’s Palo Alto office. He focuses his practice on patent, copyright, and trade secret litigation and counseling. He represents clients in industries including computer software, hardware, and peripherals, data storage, digital imaging, consumer electronics, music, and graphic design. In a case the court dubbed the “World Series of IP Cases,” Roman successfully argued in court against partial summary judgment on a copyright claim and in support of a favorable claim construction at a Markman hearing. He has represented clients at intellectual property trials, where he worked closely with expert witnesses. Roman has considerable experience in the areas of copyrightable and patent-eligible subject matter for software. He has also represented clients in disputes involving open source software licenses, such as the GNU General Public License (GPL).In 2022 Roman was recognized as a “Lawyer on the Fast Track” as part of The Recorder’s California Legal Awards for his patent and copyright practice.  Roman was also profiled in 2020 by Bloomberg Law for its “They’ve Got Next” series which spotlights young lawyers who are raising the bar in their practices.Roman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Raymond T. Chen of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and to the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Prior to law school, he worked at Accenture, one of the world’s largest information technology consulting companies.Roman received his J.D. from Stanford Law School. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Harvard University.Roman is admitted to practice in California and before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Roman Swoopes

Susan (“Suz”) co-chairs the ESG + Sustainability and Social Enterprise + Impact Investing practices. Her practice focuses on late-stage financings, secondaries, and other corporate transactions for investors, such as SoftBank and Temasek, and on investments for some of the top investors dedicated to impact, from “impact first” foundations to family offices to private equity funds. She co-led the drafting group for the first of the new corporate forms (the Social Purpose Corporation in California), has created hybrid/tandem corporate structures and crafted debt and equity instruments that blend impact with traditional financial terms, and has used corporate law to develop creative capital market solutions to pressing environmental problems. She also advises the boards of public and private companies on corporate governance and fiduciary duties as applied to sustainability and climate change.She was named a California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) in 2012 and 2016 by Daily Journal and the Most Innovative Lawyer in North America in 2015 by the Financial Times.Leading Business AdvisorA powerhouse negotiator, clients note that “you cannot get a better corporate counsel” and that Suz “understands the big picture, could not be more responsive, and understands the business” (The Legal 500 US). She has extensive experience providing corporate and finance advice to companies and investors in connection with growth equity financings and secondaries, with particular experience in late-stage investments that have come to rival traditional strategic acquisitions in size and significance. Her experience includes leading some of the highest-profile late-stage investments over the past few years, including notable transactions for SoftBank Group (in the two largest private tender offers in history) in its $7.7 billion investment in Uber, $4.4 billion investment in WeWork, further $10 billion investment in WeWork, $1 billion investment in SoFi, and $250 million investment in Kabbage. She has also advised Temasek on its $800 million investment in Verily Life Sciences, Intel on its equity investment in Cloudera, and each of Fortress, TPG Rise, Vision Ridge Partners, Generation Investment Management, and Pontifax AgTech in numerous mid- to late-stage investments in clean technology, sustainability, education, food, and agriculture technology.Social Enterprise and Impact InvestingSuz is the go-to legal resource for social enterprises (for-profit and non-profit companies focused on social or environmental purpose), impact investors (investors interested in social or environmental returns), and mainstream companies developing environmental, social, and corporate governance policies. With deep expertise in the impact investing model, institutional investors exploring the space turn to her for creative solutions and her ability to structure both investments and companies to emphasize impact and returns.She represents a wide range of investors who are focused on impact, from foundations like the Gates Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, and The Rockefeller Foundation, to family offices like Armonia, Cornerstone Capital, Emerson Collective, New Island Capital, and Omidyar Network, to private equity funds like Goldman Sachs, TPG Rise, Vision Ridge Partners, and Generation Investment Management, in their equity investments in companies and projects that are focused on generating impact and returns for investors. She has deep experience and expertise ensuring energy, sustainability, and other investments have positive impact through the use of new corporate forms, hybrid or “tandem” structures with non-profits and for-profits, and alternative debt and equity instruments.Notable work in this space includes the establishment of a tandem structure, The Carbon Endowment, to retire coal assets at scale while securing a revenue stream for community reinvestment and job training in coal communities. Suz also advised on the structuring of Common Sense Growth as an extension of the non-profit Common Sense Media (to invest in companies that address issues related to children, education, and technology), the establishment of a fund for TPG Rise to provide debt financing to Echoing Green fellows, the spin-out of PRX from Public Radio International (to generate new revenue flows up to the non-profit), the establishment of a for-profit joint venture with non-profit Medicines360 (to allow the non-profit to distribute its healthcare products to women in the developing world), and the structuring of a for-profit evergreen fund that allows The Nature Conservancy to aggregate return-seeking and donor capital in order to invest in preserving our natural resources. She has also advised numerous clients on converting to a public benefit corporation or social purpose corporation model (which requires balancing traditional fiduciary duties against a social or environmental purpose), including This American Life, Revolution Foods, Rise Labs, and Beneficial State Bancorp.Suz also regularly advises boards of directors of private and public companies, special committees, and CEOs on corporate governance, particularly the intersection of fiduciary duties with sustainability, and focuses on environmental, social, and governance issues.Unmatched Cleantech and Renewable Energy ExperienceIn addition to founding and chairing the firm’s Social Enterprise and Impact Investing Group, Suz serves as Chair of Morrison & Foerster’s Energy Group and has extensive experience representing start-up to late stage private companies in the clean technology or sustainability space. She provides corporate and finance advice in connection with equity and debt financings, mergers, acquisitions, asset purchases and sales, reorganizations, and joint ventures. She has experience working with renewable energy start-up companies and renewable energy developers in the solar, wind, and biofuels industries. Suz has assisted renewable energy start up companies with raising venture capital and has advised renewable energy developers on project acquisitions.Suz’s representative renewable energy, cleantech, sustainable, and social enterprise clients include Anaergia, Change.org, EDF Renewables, E.ON, Etsy, First Look, OneSun, Planet Labs, Rising Sun Energy, RSF Social Finance, SustainBio, Trelys, Inc., Wikipedia, and Xpansiv.Board Activity and Thought LeadershipMs. Mac Cormac was a founding board member of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), is a member of the board of directors of Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), the Ceres President’s Council, and the Earth Genome Project, and is an advising board member of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy’s Strategic Investor Initiative.She has joined the faculty (teaching on the intersection of sustainability and fiduciary duties) at both the Stanford Director’s College and the Northwestern Corporate Counsel Institute and is an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley School of Law, teaching a course on Social Enterprise.

Susan Mac Cormac

ESG + Sustainability

IP Due Diligence

Technology Transactions