Known as the vanguard for high technology and electronic commerce and the economic gateway to Asia, the San Francisco Bay Area is distinguished by an innovative entrepreneurial spirit. Within this vibrant economy, approximately 50 lawyers practice in K&L Gates’ San Francisco office, providing a wide range of legal services to local, national and international clients. The office has a particularly strong cross-border Asia practice, working closely with attorneys in the firm’s Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, and Beijing offices to serve the legal needs of companies doing business in Greater China.

The office’s securities regulation practice is one of the most prominent on the West Coast and forms part of the firm’s leading national investment management, broker-dealer, and SEC enforcement practices. Our lawyers assist SEC-registered investment companies, hedge funds and other private investment companies, investment advisers, and broker-dealers in complying with securities regulatory requirements and defend a wide range of clients against SEC and FINRA enforcement actions and in private securities litigation.

The office also features one of the region’s premier intellectual property practices. The intellectual property team, among other high-profile engagements, represents a number of Asia-based clients in patent cases in the United States. Our patent trial team consists of seasoned trial lawyers and technical attorneys with advanced degrees and patent bar memberships.  When the solution is a license agreement, we are well equipped to negotiate the best terms possible. Our counseling practice focuses on all aspects of intellectual property protection and exploitation including patent and trademark prosecution.

We have built a thriving real estate practice around private development, public infrastructure, and public-private development projects. Our attorneys are highly involved in the acquisition, development and financing of retail, office, residential and mixed-use developments, manufacturing facilities, energy projects and numerous other public-private ventures throughout California.

Our litigators handle a wide variety of complex civil cases in state and federal courts throughout the Bay Area, Northern California and elsewhere. Civil cases include contractual disputes, business torts, products liability, toxic torts, securities and consumer fraud, insurance coverage, real estate, construction, employment, environmental and creditor's rights.

We have a strong white collar criminal defense practice that draws on the experience of former Assistant United States Attorneys in San Francisco and our other offices. We conduct internal investigations in an efficient, cost-effective manner, and our lawyers are seasoned, highly skilled trial attorneys. We represent individuals and companies in all kinds of federal and state criminal prosecutions, including those involving theft of trade secrets, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act issues and antitrust and environmental violations, as well as stock option back-dating matters and other securities fraud cases.

The office’s mortgage banking and consumer and commercial finance practice concentrates on providing legal advice to the financial services industry.