Coblentz attorneys Philip Feldman and Howard Slavitt assisted the donors of a $185 million gift to UC San Francisco to establish the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences. The gift is the largest single gift ever made to UCSF, and one of the largest gifts ever made to support the neurosciences in the United States.

According to UCSF, “The gift will provide the lead investment for the construction of a new 270,000-square-foot building at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus that will serve as the Weill Institute for Neurosciences headquarters. The new building will house state-of-the-art research laboratories, as well as clinics for patients with brain and nervous system disorders.” An Innovation Fund will also provide support for research projects aimed at finding new treatments for neurological and psychiatric illnesses.

The gift also advances the University’s educational mission, establishing a new Fellows program that will offer financial support to Ph.D. students in the Neuroscience Graduate Program, allowing UCSF to continue its success in attracting the very best young scientists to its doctoral programs.

Read more about the gift to UCSF here, and watch a video overview of the Institute.

At the 2016 Design Awards ceremony of the American Institute of Architecture San Francisco (AIASF) last week, global architectural firm Gensler was one of two Interior Architecture Merit Award recipients for their design of the new home office of Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP.

The Coblentz firm relocated in August 2015 to One Montgomery Tower in the heart of the San Francisco Financial District, a space boasting unobstructed 360 degree views of the City.  Gensler worked with the Coblentz design team and other highly skilled design and construction partners to create what the AIASF jury calls a “stunning space that transcends the typical law firm experience.”  The firm’s decision to relocate and build from a blank slate presented an opportunity to carefully examine our use of space. The new design reflects how Coblentz lawyers and staff work now, and anticipates new processes that will evolve in the future.

AIASF award judges commented on various design details that led to the decision to award special recognition to the Coblentz project. “The planning, shared light peaks, and central circulation all work very well. The design choice of a high contrast palette was bold and refreshing and yanked the traditional law firm out of the past. The project dances a clever line between the dynamic and the tranquil, with its fully realized lighting acting as its principal unifying design element. This could so easily have been clumsy, but here it is quite beautiful.”

The AIASF Design Awards recognize outstanding achievements in architecture and design of Bay Area individuals and organizations, serving to inform the public of the breadth and value of architectural practice in the region.

View photos and additional award information here.

Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP is ranked nationally among both the top 25 law firms for female partners and the top 100 firms for female attorneys in two reports released by Law360.

On Law360’s annual list of “Ceiling Smashers: The Best Law Firms for Female Partners,” Coblentz is ranked 12th, with 39.5% female partnership. Ceiling Smashers identifies the top 25 U.S. law firms that have the highest percentage of female partners out of more than 300 law firms surveyed, and have made strides towards greater gender equality in their partnerships.

Coblentz is also listed at 38 among Law360’s “100 Best Law Firms for Female Attorneys,” based on the firm’s female representation at the partner and nonpartner levels and its total number of female attorneys.

Law360 ranked firms by “examining a variety of factors, including the percentage of partners, both equity and nonequity, who are women; the percentage of associate-level attorneys who are women; and the divide between those two. For the firms that nabbed spots on the list, the number of women at all levels of the firm shows that firm leaders are finding some new ways to open doors and increase diversity.”

Bill Hutton and Misti Schmidt advised property owner Eagle Ranch, LLC in its donation of a conservation easement of over 3,255 acres of pristine ranch land to The Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County, the Conservancy’s largest conservation easement gift in history. The conservation easement limits future development on the site, preserving the property as a working cattle ranch. Representatives of Eagle Ranch and the Land Conservancy were presented with certificates of appreciation and recognition from Senator Bill Monning, Assemblyman Katcho Achadjian and the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors. Bill and Misti negotiated and finalized the conservation easement for Eagle Ranch, LLC, leading to the donation of the easement at no cost to the Conservancy.

Click here to read more.

Paul Tauber is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy GTMO Task Force. On February 24, 2016, the Task Force published a report calling on the United States to fairly and transparently expedite the Guantánamo trials by putting federal judges in charge.

In presenting a plan to close GTMO, President Obama lamented that the military cases being tried there “have resulted in years of litigation without a resolution.” Justice would be swifter and surer, he suggested, if detainees could be prosecuted in federal courts.

The GTMO Task Force recognized that trying detainees on U.S. soil is enormously contentious. Their report argues that the United States could achieve a similar result – and avoid a political impasse – by simply bringing federal judges to Guantánamo.

In 2013, the Pacific Council was granted official NGO observer status at the Military Commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO), joining a group of organizations, including the American Bar Association, the New York City Bar Association and Amnesty International, that have the privilege of sending a representative to observe proceedings at GTMO.

Paul traveled to GTMO in February 2016 as a civilian observer on behalf of the Pacific Council to observe a week of hearings in the US v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. He also observed a week of pretrial hearings in February 2015. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the alleged mastermind of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, and stands trial along with four others. Since 2013, the Pacific Council has sent 17 members to the Guantánamo proceedings as official nongovernmental observers; together, they have spent nearly 100 days on the island.

Paul’s GTMO assignment follows the lead of the late William (Bill) Coblentz, who was also appointed as an observer by the American Bar Association in 1989 when he traveled to Singapore on behalf of the ABA to observe the trials of four Singaporean lawyers accused of conspiring to undermine the government.

Read the Task Force’s report here.

Paul Tauber and Howard Lasky counseled V5 Systems, Inc. in the closing of a $7 million Series A financing round. V5 is a leader in innovating wireless, on edge, intelligent security and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) computing solutions. The round was officially closed with funds received from Foxlink Group, a multi-billion dollar Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer. Foxlink will be V5’s strategic global manufacturer. V5 will leverage the new funds to execute a global product rollout, incorporate new sensors onto its existing edge based security platform and further develop its Industrial IoT wireless computing platform.

Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP is pleased to announce the election of four attorneys to the firm’s partnership. The promotions are effective January 1, 2016.

“We are delighted to welcome these outstanding individuals to the Coblentz partnership,” said Alan Gennis, co managing partner. “Our new partners mirror the depth and breadth of our practice areas. These talented lawyers, with wide-ranging experience, have shown a deep commitment to clients and our firm. We look forward to their future contributions as our partners.”

The 2016 new partners are:

Caroline Guibert Chase, Real Estate. Caroline Chase advises commercial and residential developers, predominantly in obtaining the requisite approvals to develop real property, and has significant experience with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other state and local laws affecting development. Having worked as an urban planner in the public and private sectors before attending law school, Caroline has a unique ability to understand and counsel clients on the governmental planning processes and, in particular, the continuing process to change the area plans in the City and County of San Francisco. Caroline received her J.D., with honors, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law where she served as an editor of the Journal of Law and Technology, and received her undergraduate degree in environmental design/urban planning, with honors, from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Lindsay M. Gehman, Business. Lindsay Gehman serves as outside general counsel to a variety of technology companies and advertising and marketing agencies, and advises business teams on diverse and complex corporate and securities law matters, including entity formation, corporate governance, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, commercial contract issues, advertising and marketing issues and intellectual property issues. Lindsay earned her J.D. from Loyola Law School, where she received a full academic scholarship, was named to the Dean’s Honor List and served on the Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review, and received her undergraduate degree in business economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Scott C. Hall, Litigation. Scott Hall’s practice focuses on complex civil litigation, including consumer class actions, intellectual property infringement actions, and other commercial litigation at the trial and appellate levels. He has also conducted numerous internal investigations on behalf of audit and special committees in connection with inquiries and proceedings by law enforcement and regulatory agencies. His clients include companies in the financial, electronics, technology, and telecommunications industries. Scott served as a law clerk to the Honorable William W Schwarzer of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Scott earned his law degree, cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he served as an Executive Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, and received his undergraduate degree in Political Science, cum laude, from Brigham Young University.

Jaime Mannon, Family Wealth. Jaime specializes in estate planning for high net worth families and counsels clients with respect to a variety of tax matters, including income, gift, estate and property taxes.  She also advises clients on a variety of cross-border matters, including structuring gifts made from outside of the U.S., tax planning for beneficiaries of foreign trusts and estate planning for U.S. citizens living abroad. Jaime received her J.D. from Yale Law School and her undergraduate degrees in political science and social welfare, with high honors, from the University of California, Berkeley.

Paul Tauber, Peter Wang and Brandi Brown acted as California counsel to AgJunction Inc. in its merger with Novariant, Inc., including obtaining, through the fairness hearing process, a permit from the California Department of Business Oversight. AgJunction Inc. provides innovative hardware and software applications for precision agriculture worldwide. The company is headquartered in Hiawatha, Kansas, with facilities in Silicon Valley; Scottsdale, Arizona; Calgary; Winnipeg; and Queensland, Australia. With the completion of the merger with Novariant, AgJunction gains a preeminent position in automated steering and machine control technologies, differentiated by its broad intellectual property portfolio, which includes more than 140 patents, and its ability to deliver application-specific solutions to precision agriculture customers worldwide.

Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass is recognized in BTI’s Client Service A-Team 2016, where corporate counsel ranked Coblentz in the top 100 firms nationally for client service excellence. The BTI Client Service A-Team is based solely on direct, unprompted feedback from corporate counsel, where in-depth interviews with more than 300 corporate counsel revealed that Coblentz delivers better client service than nearly 90% of the law firms serving the world’s largest clients.

The independent survey from BTI Consulting Group solicits feedback from leading legal decision makers at large organizations with $1 billion or more in revenue. to determine which law firms top the charts in client service. Firms are scored on 17 client service activities including client loyalty, legal skills, understanding a client’s business and advice on business issues. No submissions, nominations or client names are accepted for the survey.

Paul Tauber and Peter Wang represented Pure Wafer plc in the sale of its Arizona manufacturing facilities to Wafer Holding Company LLC. Pure Wafer plc is a provider of high quality silicon wafer reclaim services to a blue chip customer base of semiconductor manufacturers and independent foundries from its manufacturing facilities in Swansea, Wales, and Arizona. Following a fire at its Swansea facilities in 2014, Pure Wafer decided to sell its Arizona business to Wafer Holding Company for $16 million.