San Diego

Duane Morris' San Diego office provides the firm with a strong base from which to serve its expanding roster of global clients with locations and interests in Southern California and across the western United States. The attorneys in the San Diego office, which is top-ranked in gender equality by the Lawyers Club of San Diego, offer a comprehensive range of legal services to a variety of businesses, including startup ventures, technology companies, manufacturers, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, real estate developers, educational institutions, financial institutions and financial fiduciaries.

Range of Services

Corporate, Securities, Mergers and Acquisitions

Duane Morris corporate attorneys advise early-stage and mature companies on a wide variety of corporate and securities matters. Members of the Corporate Practice Group are experienced with mergers and acquisitions, including negotiated acquisitions and divestitures as well as hostile acquisitions and defense against takeover attempts, public and private offerings of equity and debt securities, corporate finance, corporate compliance, corporate governance, taxation, SEC regulatory matters and venture capital and private equity transactions. Duane Morris lawyers regularly represent international clients in both domestic and transnational transactions and work with many clients in developing and implementing creative strategies to accomplish their corporate finance and acquisition objectives. The firm's attorneys also represent clients in a range of securities offerings and advise public companies on compliance with ongoing reporting obligations and other securities laws.

Complex Litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution

Lawyers in Duane Morris' Trial Practice Group represent clients in all types of complex commercial litigation, from inception through trial and appeal. Duane Morris trial attorneys are experienced in many areas, including securities, antitrust, commercial, products liability, intellectual property, environmental and real estate disputes. Members of the Trial Practice Group work closely with the firm's corporate and bankruptcy lawyers and often represent financial institutions in complex litigation. The firm's attorneys have represented numerous international and national manufacturers in all forms of products liability and toxic tort litigation, including defense of product class actions, serving as national coordinating counsel, lead counsel, regional counsel or local counsel. Duane Morris also represents both individuals and corporations facing federal and state allegations of criminal conduct, including fraud, environmental crimes, securities violations, RICO violations, trade espionage and a variety of business-related offenses. In addition to representing clients in U.S. forums and before international tribunals, the firm also provides counsel on settling disputes without conventional litigation by using alternative dispute resolution and advises on methods to anticipate and avoid litigation.

Commercial Litigation

Members of the Trial Practice Group regularly handle complex commercial litigation matters in many areas, including franchise litigation, products liability, patent litigation, construction law and related litigation and professional liability. The firm's practice encompasses a wide range of business relationships, including disputes involving the Uniform Commercial Code, contracts, business dissolutions, leveraged buyouts and other financial arrangements. The firm's attorneys are well-versed in all phases of litigation and alternative dispute resolution, including substantial experience in handling preliminary injunction hearings, trials, appeals, arbitrations and mediations, as well as counseling on methods to anticipate and avoid litigation. Counseling services include contract review, evaluation of contract retention policies, analysis of company literature, evaluation of employment disputes and evaluation of products and company sales procedures.

Products Liability, Toxic Torts and Product Safety

Duane Morris' national litigation practice represents numerous international and national manufacturers and their insurance companies in all forms of products liability litigation, including defense of product class actions, in both federal and state courts, and consolidated multidistrict actions, serving as lead counsel and as local, regional and national counsel. The firm's experience includes defense of mass tort litigation in which lawsuits from multiple districts are handled in a coordinated team effort. The firm's attorneys have also tried or settled all types of personal injury cases, including those involving explosions, construction/workplace accidents, products liability, transportation and medical malpractice. Whether defending a products liability client in a single catastrophic injury case or acting as national litigation coordinating counsel for a client with thousands of pending product cases, Duane Morris trial attorneys are supported by the firm's state-of-the-art litigation technology, which is creatively applied to efficiently and cost-effectively meet the needs of the particular litigation matter.

White-Collar Criminal Litigation 

Duane Morris counsels both individuals and corporations facing federal and state allegations of criminal conduct. The firm's lawyers advise clients accused of Medicare/Medicaid fraud and abuse, environmental crimes, securities violations, criminal tax fraud, fraud in government procurement, RICO violations, trade espionage and a variety of business-related offenses. Duane Morris attorneys also have extensive experience leading internal investigations.

Commercial Finance

Members of the Commercial Finance Practice Group represent lenders and borrowers in both secured and unsecured financings across many different industries. The firm's attorneys have experience in project finance, traditional investment-grade revolving credit agreements, secured restructuring arrangements and Uniform Commercial Code issues. Duane Morris attorneys have experience that begins with the development of the structure of the transaction, as well as with the negotiation, documentation, due diligence and closing. The firm's finance practice represents lenders and borrowers in documenting and negotiating real and personal property loans and secured transactions, including revolving lines of credit, asset-based loans, securitized credits and construction financing.

Real Estate

Duane Morris' real estate attorneys represent a broad range of high-profile institutional and individual clients in all aspects of real estate transactions and related matters. Duane Morris' clients include investors, corporations, developers, asset management firms, insurance companies, title companies, construction companies, property owners, financial institutions, communities, public agencies, educational institutions and others. The Real Estate Practice Group handles real estate acquisitions and dispositions, financings, workouts and restructurings, development and leasing, land use, title and zoning issues.

Employment Law and Management Labor Relations

Duane Morris' lawyers represent employers of all sizes in a broad spectrum of labor and employment matters, including equal employment opportunity compliance, statutory compliance and employment termination and related litigation. The firm's attorneys provide a full range of labor relations services, representing clients in union-organizing campaigns, proceedings before the National Labor Relations Board, negotiations of labor contracts and disputes over labor contract provisions. The group assists employers in protecting their proprietary information and in enforcing noncompetition and nonsolicitation agreements. Duane Morris lawyers emphasize policies to prevent employment problems through problem prevention programs and services, including seminars and workshops, customized training programs and employment practice audits. Duane Morris lawyers have significant experience in defense of class-action employment litigation, including discrimination and wage-and-hour claims.

Education Law

Duane Morris attorneys in San Diego provide comprehensive education law services to all types of learning institutions, from public and private schools to vocational-technical schools to private and public colleges and universities. The firm has particular depth in the representation of for-profit private postsecondary institutions. This multidisciplinary team offers counsel and representation to clients in the education field in a wide range of areas, from student claims and risk management, employment and labor issues, consumer and commercial class actions to mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property, real estate and construction matters, as well as interaction with the regulatory issues unique to higher education.

The firm's attorneys take a team approach to apply creative solutions to the complex problems of 21st century educational institutions. The attorneys' depth of knowledge of the operations of educational institutions gives them unique insight into the resolution of the many challenges faces by educators. Issues that cannot be resolved outside the courtroom are handled by experienced litigators in a vigorous and efficient manner in the courts or through various means of alternative dispute resolution.

Intellectual Property

Duane Morris' intellectual property (IP) lawyers recognize the importance of clients' intellectual capital to the success of their businesses and understand how to uphold IP rights to increase opportunities for clients to enhance market share. Members of the firm's IP practice have played pivotal roles in the development of IP law, and their ranks include highly trained patent attorneys with backgrounds in biosciences, materials, chemicals, polymers, electronics and telecommunications. The attorneys' experience includes trademarks and copyrights, patents, licensing agreements and brand protection, both domestic and international.

Duane Morris lawyers have substantial experience across the United States in all areas of IP litigation, including jury trial experience on behalf of IP owners and accused infringers in patent, trademark, trade dress, copyright and trade secret cases. The firm's IP attorneys have also represented clients in mediation, arbitration, inter partes proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and before appellate courts concerning IP matters.

Life Sciences

Duane Morris' Life Sciences Practice Group lawyers work with legal issues at the crossroads of science and business. Attorneys from several of the firm's practice groups unite to offer clients a full panoply of legal services provided within the framework of their business to address each client's specific needs. The firm's attorneys represent clients at all stages of their products' lives, from discovery through development, clinical testing, marketing and sales.

Information Technology and Telecommunications

Duane Morris has assembled a dedicated group of attorneys possessing specific industry knowledge and interdisciplinary skills to address the transactional, finance, regulatory and dispute resolution aspects of structuring and implementing a wide range of information technologies and telecommunications projects.

Private Client Services

Duane Morris' Private Client Services Practice Group represents a broad range of closely held business owners and other high net worth individuals with respect to their personal and professional planning. The firm provides estates, trusts, asset planning and related litigation services to individuals, business owners, charitable organizations and fiduciaries. The Private Client Services attorneys have significant experience in the settlement of decedents' estates, fiduciary income tax matters, administration of trusts and counseling on family matters. Throughout each relationship with clients, Duane Morris attorneys work to minimize tax exposure and implement creative strategies to preserve capital and transfer resources within the client's family and to next generations. The firm also provides all aspects of fiduciary litigation services related to probate, trust and guardianship administration.

For More Information

For more information, please contact San Diego office managing partner Edward M. Cramp or any of the lawyers referenced in the Attorney Listing.