Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP has appointed thirteen new partners across eight offices of the firm. The 2021 Partner Class of Sheppard Mullin consists of 6 women and 7 men. The new partners will assume their new roles from March 01, 2021 and include Daniel Belzer (Century City), Vinay Bhupathy (Century City), Matt Bonovich (Chicago), Kira N. Conlon (Los Angeles), Matthew J. Goldman (Century City), Hayley S. Grunvald (San Diego (Del Mar)), Kristin P. Housh (San Diego (Del Mar)), Patricia M. Jeng (San Francisco), Joy Nemirow (Palo Alto), Chris Ponder (Palo Alto), Thomas R. Proctor (San Diego), Mikela T. Sutrina (Chicago), and Douglas A. (Drew) Svor (Washington, D.C.).
Daniel Belzer is based in the firm’s Century City office. He is a member of the firm’s Corporate practice group. He also works with the firm’s Private Equity, Emerging Growth/Venture Capital, Esports & Games and Latin America teams. Daniel’s practice includes corporate and securities law, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions and capital raising transactions, venture capital and private equity financings, business formation and structuring, commercial contracts and early-stage company counseling.
Vinay Bhupathy is also based in the firm’s Century City office. He is a member of the firm’s Corporate practice and Healthcare team. He counsels clients from the healthcare industry on mergers and acquisitions, strategic transactions, value-based care, reimbursement and regulatory compliance, health information technology contracting, product development and operations and data security and privacy.
Mathew J. Goldman is the third new partner based in the firm’s Century City office. He is a member of the firm’s Corporate practice and Healthcare team. His practice focuses on regulatory and transactional issues related to healthcare law including licensing, regulatory compliance, and managed care arrangements. His transactional practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and strategic alliances in the healthcare sector. His clients include hospitals, managed care organizations, medical groups and other healthcare entities and providers.
Matt Bonovich is based in the firm’s Chicago office. He is a member of the firm’s Energy, Infrastructure and Project Finance team and the Real Estate, Land Use and Environmental practice group. His practice focuses on energy transactions, with specialization in renewables, and all aspects of project contracts, including M&A transactions, power purchase agreements, hedges and other offtake arrangements, construction and procurement, interconnection and transmission and operations and maintenance. Matt works on all types of energy technologies, including, natural gas, LNG, wind, solar, storage, transmission, and biomass.
Mikela T. Sutrina is also based in the firm’s Chicago office. She is a member of the firm’s Labor & Employment practice group. Her practice focuses on representing clients in single, multi-plaintiff, class, and collective actions related to discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination, whistleblower and whistleblower retaliation actions and breach of contract issues. She also assists clients with workplace policies related to human resources issues, including alcohol and drug testing programs and written policies and testing procedures, harassment and discrimination policies, restrictive covenant agreements and trade secret protection.
Kira T. Conlon is based in the firm’s Los Angeles office. She is a member of the firm’s Real Estate, Land Use and Environmental practice group and the Multifamily Housing and Cannabis teams. She is also the Leader of the firm’s Los Angeles Women Lawyers Group. Her practice focuses on land use and zoning entitlements for a broad spectrum of residential, mixed-use, commercial, industrial and educational institution projects throughout California.
Haley S. Grunvald is based in the firm’s San Diego office. She is a member of the firm’s Labor and Employment practice group. Her practice focuses on different issues relating to labor and employment law, with a focus on employment litigation defense work including wage and hour class actions, single plaintiff actions and State and Federal enforcement actions. Her work also encompasses Title III ADA access litigation.
Kristin P. Housh is also based in the firm’s San Diego office. She is a member of the firm’s Business Trial practice group. Her practice focuses on business litigation matters, including high-stakes contractual disputes and equity ownership, partnership and shareholder disputes, securities and corporate governance matters, and pro bono matters.
Thomas R. Proctor is the third new partner based in the firm’s San Diego office. He is a member of the firm’s Business Trial practice group. His practice focuses on representing insurance companies in bad faith litigation, first- and third-party bad faith lawsuits, including large, first-party property losses; “cap off,” failure to settle lawsuits; complex coverage litigation involving environmental, progressive loss and other long-tail liabilities; and class actions.
Patricia M. Jeng is based in the firm’s San Francisco office. She is a member of the firm’s Labor & Employment practice group. Her practice focuses on labor and employment matters in state and federal court and before administrative agencies including representative and class action litigation, complex wage and hour matters, including representative actions under the Private Attorneys General Act, single-plaintiff claims of harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, and other employment-related claims. She also counsels clients on workplace policies related to employment laws.
Dr. Joy Nemirow is based in the firm’s Palo Alto office. She is a member of the firm’s Intellectual Property practice group and the Life Sciences team. She advises clients on patent preparation, prosecution and strategy in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and chemical fields, developing global patent portfolios, validity of patents, freedom-to-operate and inventorship, validity and infringement in the abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) context, and due diligence on patent portfolios.
Chris Ponder is also based in the firm’s Palo Alto office. He is a member of the firm’s Intellectual Property practice group. His practice focuses on complex intellectual property disputes involving patents, trade secrets and unfair competition for clients in the digital streaming, enterprise software, gaming, medical device, semiconductor and telecommunications industries. He also advises clients on intellectual property licenses, evaluating commercial agreements relating to technology, and developing policies and procedures to protect intellectual property rights He handles litigation in federal district courts in California, Delaware, Texas and Wisconsin and also represents clients before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Douglas A. (Drew) Svor is based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. He is a member of the firm’s Corporate practice group and the Communications team. His practice focuses on all aspects of communications law including international telecommunications and cross-border investment issues. He represents technology companies, telecommunications and satellite operators, and their investors in complex regulatory matters before the Federal Communications Commission, including complex spectrum policy matters.
Guy Galgren, Chairman at Sheppard Mullin, said, “These accomplished 13 women and men, resident across eight of our offices, embody Sheppard Mullin’s long-standing commitment to client service. 2020 was a challenging year for many reasons, and these attorneys were instrumental in helping their clients navigate these unprecedented times. I am proud to promote these deserving lawyers to our partnership ranks as the future leaders of our firm.”