Mintz announces the election of eight attorneys to Members, effective January 1, 2025. The newly promoted Members join the ranks of the firm’s growing membership, including six new lateral Members who joined the firm in 2024.

“We are proud to recognize the accomplishments of these talented attorneys, each of whom embody Mintz’s collaborative culture and drive to achieve exceptional results for our clients,” said Bob Bodian, Managing Member. “We are equally proud to have attracted such impressive new lateral Members this year, adding further breadth and depth in key areas such as life sciences patent litigation, technology, and privacy and cybersecurity litigation.”

Mintz congratulates the following newly elevated Members:

Alexander Civetta (Corporate, Boston)

Alex advises innovators and high-growth companies on the intersection of law and business, with an emphasis on entrepreneurship, technology transactions, and negotiation. He is a lifecycle lawyer who counsels companies from formation through exit, handling venture financings of all stages and levels of complexity, in addition to negotiating or advising on hundreds of technology, IP and commercial contract matters every year.

David Conway (Corporate, Private Equity, Boston)

David practices in the firm's private equity group, representing mid-market private equity sponsors, strategic investors, and family offices in the structuring and negotiation of leveraged buyouts, mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and minority investments across multiple industries. David also advises private equity clients and their portfolio companies on contractual and commercial matters, legal due diligence, corporate governance, restructuring, and corporate advisory issues. 

Nishant Dharia (Corporate, New York)

Nishant’s practice focuses on corporate and securities law matters. Nishant routinely advises issuers, investors, and investment banking firms on a variety of transactions, with a focus on initial public offerings, follow-on offerings, private investments in public equity (PIPEs), registered direct offerings, SPACs, and mergers and acquisitions. Nishant also provides counsel to public and private companies on corporate governance, SEC reporting and disclosure requirements, compliance matters and stock exchange requirements. Nishant advises clients in a wide range of industries, including health care, life sciences, medical device, technology, and energy and sustainability. 

Alexandra Gallo-Cook (Litigation, New York)

Lexie represents Mintz clients in complex commercial disputes, achieving successful results in antitrust, real estate, and insurance matters. Lexie is an experienced trial lawyer, having litigated disputes in federal and state courts and arbitration forums across the United States. She works closely with clients to coordinate strategy at both the trial and appellate levels, as well as in governmental investigations.  Lexie represents a wide range of clients, including those from the healthcare, financial, and manufacturing industries.

Nicholas Mouton (IP Prosecution, San Diego)

Nicholas's practice is dedicated to counseling clients in obtaining and enforcing intellectual property rights, as well as analyzing and advising clients on freedom of action, capital market transactions, licensing deals, and acquisitions. His technical experience includes patent prosecution in electronics, semiconductors, medical device technologies, wireless communications, software, user interfaces, artificial intelligence, cryptography, information technology, and design patents.  He has also participated in and advised on a number of successful US International Trade Commission actions, European Patent Office opposition proceedings, Unitary Patent Court actions, and local European patent enforcement lawsuits.

Tim Rousseau (IP Litigation, Boston)

Tim focuses his intellectual property practice on patent litigation and strategic IP counseling. He has represented clients in federal district courts throughout the United States and before the US International Trade Commission, the US Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He advises clients and participates in all phases of litigation, from initial investigation and discovery through trial and appeal, and has litigated cases involving a broad range of technologies, with a particular focus on matters involving electrical and computer systems. He also handles cases relating to internet services and systems, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and mechanical devices. Tim additionally advises clients on patent acquisitions and licenses and provides opinions on patent infringement and validity issues.

Ellen Shapiro (Litigation, New York)

Ellen focuses her practice on securities litigation, business disputes, white collar defense, and crisis management. She has experience advising clients in all stages of litigation, including pre-litigation counseling and negotiations, taking and defending depositions, drafting dispositive briefs and other filings, as well as assisting clients through the appeals process. She also has significant experience representing clients in internal investigations and interfacing with various government entities including the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Ellen advises institutional investors and represents companies and individuals in a variety of industries, including life sciences and financial services.

Aaron Williams (Public Finance/Bankruptcy, Boston)

Aaron’s practice focuses primarily on complex commercial transactions, restructuring and workouts, and corporate and municipal bankruptcies, with an emphasis on providing guidance to institutional investors in connection with their investments in high-yield securities, both tax-exempt and taxable, in both distressed and new-money transactions. Aaron frequently represents indenture trustees, mutual funds, asset management companies and other sophisticated creditors with respect to defaults, workouts, restructurings, capital recoveries and bankruptcy and other insolvency proceedings. His experience encompasses a wide array of industries and sectors, including hospital and hospital districts, senior living, higher education, charter schools, student housing, affordable and workforce housing, energy and novel project financings.

2024 New Lateral Members

Mintz welcomed the following six new lateral Members in 2024:

Thomas Earnest (Corporate, San Francisco)

Thomas has more than a decade of experience providing strategic legal and business guidance to clients ranging from start-ups to late stage private and public companies. Primarily serving private and public technology, video gaming, digital media, and retail and consumer products companies, he regularly counsels clients in a range of mission-critical transactions, including company and entity formation, venture and private equity financing, and mergers & acquisitions (M&A). Read more here. 

Laura Franco (IP Prosecution, San Francisco)

Laura is an internationally recognized trademark practitioner who provides thoughtful and practical counseling to ensure a brand’s integrity, and developing and applying strategic branding strategies that align with clients’ business goals. Her practice encompasses trademark prosecution and counseling, brand enforcement strategies in the physical and digital space, trademark and copyright litigation and IP licensing. She represents start-ups to Fortune 500 companies across a wide variety of industries, including financial services, technology, video games, entertainment, food and beverage, and consumer products. Read more here. 

Siegmund Gutman (IP Litigation, Los Angeles)

Sige is a nationally recognized patent litigator and counselor who serves as Chair of the firm’s Life Sciences Litigation Practice and Co-chair of our Patent Litigation Practice. He has an educational background and extensive industry experience in molecular and cell biology and biophysical chemistry. He has successfully litigated numerous cases involving biologic drug patents, other life sciences innovations, and the Hatch-Waxman Act. His practice also encompasses developing and executing market exclusivity and freedom to operate strategies for a wide range of leading life sciences companies and handling inter partes patent office actions. Read more here.

David Hanna (IP Litigation, Los Angeles)

David is an accomplished IP attorney with over 15 years of experience prosecuting, advising, and litigating in various technology areas, including pharmaceuticals, chemical, biologics, diagnostics, gene editing, and medical devices. David specializes in patent litigation, including litigating many high-profile and billion-dollar patent cases in district court litigation, Federal Circuit appeals, and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceedings. David has counseled his clients through all aspects of litigation, including arguing claim construction and discovery-related issues before the Court, taking and defending dozens of fact and expert depositions, and taking numerous direct and cross examinations of expert witnesses at trial. Read more here. 

Scott Lashway (Litigation, Boston)

Scott is a globally recognized privacy and cybersecurity disputes attorney who focuses his practice on the intersections of law, corporate data, and technology. A go-to advisor for significant disputes, corporate crises, and investigations, he also serves as Co-chair of Mintz’s Privacy & Cybersecurity Practice. Along with guiding clients through high-stakes incident response and breach investigations, complex and bet-the-company litigation, government investigations, and enforcement actions, he provides strategic counsel on complex privacy matters, data management, and technology development and use, including development and use of artificial intelligence. Scott represents clients in a range of industries, with a particular emphasis on health care, financial services, technology, artificial intelligence, and the media and adtech sectors. Read more here.

Christopher Lisy (Litigation, Boston)

Chris has more than two decades of counseling and trial experience in the technology, financial services, and health care industries. He advises clients on data protection and security and the enforcement of data, intellectual property, and contractual rights. This includes assisting clients in investigating and addressing cybersecurity events and data breaches, and the litigation that often follows. His technology work includes matters involving artificial intelligence, cyberattacks, data scraping, proprietary and open source computer code, virtual reality, and commercial software products in the storage, database, and planning and scheduling areas. A significant portion of Chris’s practice involves advising insurance companies and asset managers on issues specific to their industries, including defending clients in complex litigation and class actions with shareholders, policy owners, and agents. Read more here. 

About Mintz

Mintz is a litigation powerhouse and business accelerator serving leaders in life sciences, private equity, energy, and technology. The world’s most innovative companies trust Mintz to provide expert advice, protect and monetize their IP, negotiate deals, source financing, and solve complex legal challenges. The firm has over 600 attorneys across offices in Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Washington, DC, San Francisco, San Diego, and Toronto.