K&L Gates practices law on an integrated basis and indeed has the largest integrated network of offices of any global law firm.   

In 2012, 467 of our 500 largest clients used lawyers in two or more of our offices, and 15 of our 20 largest clients used lawyers in 10 or more of our offices. The average number of offices engaged on projects by the firm’s 20 largest clients was 15.3. For our 100 largest clients, which represent 34.4% of total firm revenue, the average number of offices engaged was 10.3. Our global platform, diversity of practice strengths and integrated approach to client service are the hallmarks of a law firm positioned for all stages of the business cycle.  As noted by the May 2010 issue of The American Lawyer: K&L Gates “was nearly alone in posting revenue and profit gains in both 2008 and 2009 [during the Great Recession].” 

Our delivery of legal services is supported at both the individual office level and through seven firmwide practice areas: Corporate and Transactional; Energy, Infrastructure and Resources; Financial Services; Intellectual Property; Litigation and Dispute Resolution; Real Estate; and Regulatory and Policy.  Within each of these practice areas are subject matter and industry-based practice groups. 

Corporate and Transactional
Our multi-office corporate and transactional practice is one of the most substantial in the profession.  We maintain a balance between company side and capital markets clients, in virtually every industry segment.  We perform corporate and transactional engagements for large multinational companies, ambitious middle market and emerging growth companies, and capital markets participants including public and private investment organizations, investment banks, commercial lenders and other financial institutions, and individuals.  Our sophisticated global finance practice focuses on structured finance, securitizations, derivatives, mezzanine lending, acquisition finance, Shariah-compliant finance, high-yield debt, real estate finance, and municipal finance.  We are recognized as a leader in the private equity, hedge fund, venture capital, consumer mortgage finance, AIM listing and ESOP areas. 

Our lawyers in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, Latin America and the Middle East are highly experienced in cross-border M&A, securities and financing transactions, as well as corporate counseling in general.  We adopt a multidisciplinary approach in counseling our clients and draw upon our firm’s unparalleled resources, including creation of firm wide task forces to address important industry and topical client needs such as the global financial crisis, global government solutions, financial services reform, the mortgage foreclosure crisis, infrastructure development and life sciences. 

We were recognized as one of the top 25 national corporate law firms in a survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. public company general counsel by Corporate Board Member magazine and FTI Consulting and published in the magazine’s listing of “America’s Best Corporate Law Firms” for 2012.  In the U.S. News-Best Lawyers “Best Law Firms” survey that was released in November 2012, the firm’s Corporate/M&A practice received National Tier 1 rankings for: Corporate Law, Mergers and Acquisitions Law, Private Funds/Hedge Funds Law, Securities/Capital Markets Law, and Securities Regulation. In addition, the U.S. News-Best Lawyers 2011-2012 survey named K&L Gates as “Law Firm of the Year” for Corporate Governance Law.  Our corporate practices continue to grow in market share and recognition, as evidenced by the following:  Bloomberg Global Legal Adviser 2012 League Tables ranked us as #8 in US Equity Linked Issuer Advisers, #10 for US Preferred Issuer Advisors, #3 in AIM Equity IPO Issuer Advisers, and #13 for Australia/NZ Equity IPO Issuer Advisors; PrivateRaise 2012 PIPE League Tables ranked us as #11 for Top 25 PIPE Issuer law firms; and Thomson Reuters Mid-Market M&A Review Legal Advisors ranked us as #13 for US Target Mid-Market. Chambers USA ranked K&L Gates as “Highly Regarded” in the publication’s 2012 nationwide category for Corporate/M&A. The American Lawyer 2012 Corporate Scorecard ranked K&L Gates as #1 for REIT Equities Issuer’s Counsel by Value and #5 for REIT Debt Issuer’s Counsel by Value.  Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst 2012 ranked K&L Gates as  the 12^th most active law firm by combined number of private equity and venture capital deals, and the 11^th most active by number of funds.

Energy, Infrastructure and Resources
Our energy, infrastructure and resources practice integrates the many disciplines involved in project-related representations.  We represent clients with operations in the oil and gas, mining and minerals, electric power, transportation, water and wastewater, construction and related industries in North and South America, Western, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the CIS States, Australia, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.  Our U.S. oil and gas practice is recognized for its extensive experience in both conventional and unconventional formations, including the largest onshore domestic shale plays.  In Australia, the Middle East and Asia our lawyers work on a range of engagements in the upstream and downstream sectors.  We have successfully represented the sponsors, developers or promoters of projects as well as commercial and development banks, investors, vendors, landowners, contractors (EPC and O&M), operators, and equipment suppliers.  We frequently represent clients involved in project or company acquisitions and divestitures.  In the mining industry, our practice spans the range of natural resources development, conservation, and management companies – including water, coal, aggregates, minerals, and base and precious metals.  Our work for mining and quarrying companies has focused on a wide range of regulatory compliance and transactional matters, from obtaining, renewing and transferring mining, water, air and other permits, to due diligence (environmental, real estate, corporate, litigation, and financial) in the context of acquisitions of facilities and mineral rights.  As circumstances warrant, we represent clients in disputes and enforcement proceedings for alleged permit and license violations. Our multidisciplinary, firmwide approach gives our clients seamless access to focused advice so that they can make the best decisions for their projects and execute those decisions in the most efficient and effective manner. Our bench strength across multiple jurisdictions in corporate transactions and finance, risk management and insurance coverage, tax, real estate, environmental permitting, regulatory matters, and public policy enables us to provide high quality and efficient representation from the earliest phases of due diligence through financing, land acquisition, permitting, construction, operation, transfer and decommissioning of projects.

Financial Services
The firm’s financial services practice cuts across the many disciplines that require highly specialized knowledge and experience to address governmental regulation and having deep knowledge of the global financial markets. We represent a large majority of the major financial institutions and, securities, and asset management firms in a variety of disciplines the major financial centers across the globe. Our investment management practice -- one of the largest and strongest in the world and consistently named in the top tiers of the practice by Chambers, Legal 500, and U.S. News and World Report -- has done work for most of the leading firms in the industry. We were actively involved in the development of the recent U.S. financial services reform law and are representing numerous clients with regard to its regulatory implementation. The same is true for our non-U.S. clients that are dealing with new European Directives requiring significant changes to their operations and ability to offer services throughout the EU. We are also at the forefront on advising investment firms on the various changes in the Australian and Asian regulated markets, as regulators take a more proactive view on overseeing the activities of their market participants. Likewise, our mortgage banking and consumer financial products group is one of the leading practices in the field with a dominant position in many related specialties, including regulatory compliance, government enforcement, class action defense, and transactional work. We have been extensively involved representing clients in regard to various aspects of the mortgage foreclosure crisis. Our position in the financial services sector was acknowledged by the appointment of Washington, D.C. partner, Mike Missal, as Examiner in the high-profile New Century Financial bankruptcy proceeding.

Intellectual Property
Our intellectual property practice is one of the strongest in the profession. IP Law and Business describes our practice as “cutting edge” and ranks us as one of the “go-to firms for the world’s most forward-thinking companies.” Our IP capabilities span the globe. Corporate Counsel, in its recent ranking of law firms that represent Corporate America, ranked the IP Group as second overall and tied for second for IP Litigation and for Patent Prosecution. With over 240 attorneys worldwide, over 100 USPTO registered professionals and more than 20 IP professionals in Australia alone; we provide a broad range of technology expertise and practical experience. Our experienced lawyers practice in chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, software, physics, math, biology, pharmacology and immunology. With this technological depth, we are one of the top filers of patent and trademark applications in the United States and Australia. Last year we were the second most prolific filer of trademarks in the United States and we are one of the most prolific filers of patents. We also provide sophisticated counseling about and assistance with the acquisition and global management of patent, trademark and copyright portfolios.

Our intellectual property litigation teams have handled cases in all 50 of the United States as well as the District of Columbia, and in venues such as Australia, China, Poland, Taipei, and the United Kingdom. We have extensive experience in the leading US IP venues, including the International Trade Commission (where we have been recognized as a top-ten practice), the Federal Circuit, the Eastern District of Texas, the District of Delaware, the Eastern District of Virginia, the Western District of Wisconsin, the Northern District of Illinois and the Central and the Northern Districts of California. For example, our IP litigation group obtained the third largest jury verdict in history in a patent infringement case in 2012, and we are also engaged to handle one of the largest recent patent infringement lawsuits in history involving a large number of manufacturers of smart phones with revenues in the billions. Moreover, we augment our litigation prowess with a sophisticated inter partes and ex parte practice in the USPTO. Our experience includes representing multiple clients against a common plaintiff as well as representing clients in multiple forums simultaneously against a common plaintiff. Our technology group provides advice in relation to telecommunications, information technology procurement, outsourcing, privacy, software, and e-commerce websites, as well as negotiating large multi-jurisdictional system development and integration agreements.

Litigation and Dispute Resolution
Our Litigation and Dispute Resolution team of more than 900 lawyers spans Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and the United States. We were ranked among top law firms as a "standout" in both Securities and Finance Litigation and Complex Commercial Litigation in BTI Consulting Group's 2013 Litigation Outlook Survey. Additionally, several of our litigation practices were recognized with national first-tier rankings in the 2013 U.S. News-Best Lawyers survey. Our labor, employment and workplace safety practice group also was recognized as the "Employment Firm of the Year" at the 2012 ALB Australasian Law Awards. We also consistently have been ranked among both The Lawyer's Global Litigation Top 50 and Global Arbitration Review's Top 100 firms. We have been rated a leading practice in the representation of corporate policyholders in the insurance coverage area and as a leading litigation firm for the financial services sector. Our litigation engagements also have helped to shape intellectual property law in the fast-moving technology sector. Our acclaimed e-Discovery Analysis and Technology (“e-DAT”) group continues to pave the way nationally and internationally in the exploding field of e-discovery.

Our litigation engagements – including, among other substantive areas, insurance coverage, consumer, intellectual property, real estate, white-collar criminal, professional liability, environmental, toxic tort, products liability, franchise, tax, bankruptcy and insolvency, antitrust and competition, labor, employment and workplace safety, benefits, government contracts, constitutional and election law, and securities, transactional and investment company litigation – are among the largest and most complex of any law firm. Our litigation practice includes international arbitrations before arbitration tribunals across the globe, civil and criminal trials, class actions and appellate work. The breadth of our experience is reflected not only in the geographic and substantive span of our work, but also in the industries in which we practice regularly. K&L Gates attorneys have litigated and arbitrated major disputes in nearly every industry and market sector. We work closely with our partners in other specialized practice disciplines to bring to bear industry-knowledgeable teams with practical experience and industry insight.

Class actions, and other similar forms of representative actions once confined largely to the United States, are now becoming increasingly common in other jurisdictions. We have class action defense lawyers located in the majority of our U.S. offices, as well as offices in Asia, Australia and Europe, who have defended cases involving potential classes of hundreds of thousands of individuals and damages alleged to be in the billions of dollars. We've defended major class actions brought in numerous state and federal courts in nearly all of the United States and in Australia, the United Kingdom, Taiwan, and other jurisdictions, and are uniquely positioned to defend local, international, and global companies in class and representative litigation wherever it may arise.

Policy and Regulatory
The policy and regulatory practices cover a wide variety of areas including public policy, government enforcement, healthcare, antitrust/ competition, telecommunications, environmental, food and drug, education, government contracts and international trade. More than 500 of our lawyers have previous governmental experience that enhances their ability to serve K&L Gates’ clients in regulatory fields, while others have held prominent positions in regulated industries. Our policy group is the largest of any fully integrated global law firm. The group of nearly 50 bipartisan lawyers and policy professionals includes former U.S. House members, former Republican and Democratic counsel and staff to the House and Senate leadership committees. Our lawyers also regularly address administrative and regulatory problems in the EU and Asia. Our Global Government Solutions initiative affords our clients the opportunity to shape regulatory and legislative actions affecting their businesses around the world in a coordinated and integrated manner. In the United States, the 2013 U.S. News-Best Lawyers® survey recognized K&L Gates as Top Law Firm for Environmental Law.

Real Estate
K&L Gates has one of the largest dedicated real estate practices of any global law firm. Our real estate practice provides an integrated portfolio of legal services around the world, delivering a streamlined approach to handling transactions in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. The firm has played a significant role in many large and complex real estate transactions. The real estate group has expansive transactional and advisory experience and also delivers strategic and practical advice on corporate and joint venture aspects of transactions, real estate investment and fund matters, the financing of transactions, tax structures, construction issues (contentious and non-contentious), sustainable development issues, land use, planning, permitting and environmental issues and dispute resolution.

The real estate finance group also has a widely acknowledged and excellent reputation for its advice to banks and borrowers on all aspects of lending and commercial real estate financing, and our real estate attorneys routinely advise lenders, borrowers, and investors in the context of distressed real estate transactions. Our global real estate team was shortlisted for “Real Estate Team of the Year, 2011” and “Property Team of the Year, 2011/12” by UK publications The Lawyer, Legal Week, and Legal Business, respectively.

In the United States, the 2013 U.S. News-Best Lawyers® survey recognized K&L Gates among the top real estate law firms in the country, ranking it Tier 1 nationwide in both the Real Estate Law and Land Use & Zoning categories as well as in seven of our offices. Additionally, more than 30 K&L Gates lawyers have been recognized as “Best Lawyers” within the overall real estate industry and more than 40 of our lawyers in the United States and London have earned the coveted LEED-AP designation from the United States Green Building Council.

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The firm continuously evaluates the direction of its practices and allocates resources so that its capabilities reach to the forefront of emerging disciplines.  In recent years the firm has recruited laterally in such disparate fields as antitrust/competition, public policy, capital markets, product liability litigation, healthcare and healthcare litigation, treaty and other international arbitration, intellectual property and intellectual property litigation, project finance, derivatives and structured finance, international trade, real estate transactions and restructuring, investment management and hedge funds, corporate transactional, licensing, private equity, tax, environmental, construction litigation, securities enforcement, toxic tort litigation, benefits and share schemes, real estate finance, bankruptcy and restructuring, telecommunications, food and drug, FERC, healthcare and life sciences, and employment to address the evolving needs of our clientele.  We also strive to maintain a creative, interdisciplinary approach to the practice, as evidenced by the extraordinary convergence of disciplines that permitted our K&L Gates colleague, former US Attorney General Dick Thornburgh, to act as the court-appointed Examiner in the WorldCom bankruptcy proceeding and the firm itself to act as his counsel.

Our lawyers practice at the peak of our profession.  They serve as leaders of various professional organizations and render public service through pro bono representations and service to their communities.  Our Boston partner, Mike Greco, served as President of the American Bar Association in 2005-06, while our former Seattle partner, Bill Neukom, served as the 2007-08 President of the American Bar Association.  Two of our partners, David Tang and Kim Askew, serve on the select Council of the American Law Institute.  K&L Gates lawyers participate vigorously in the intellectual debate that is so fundamental to the advanced practice of law, routinely address professional colloquia, and author leading treatises and articles in their fields.