We work closely with our clients
to understand their goals
to understand their goals
Business Litigation
Gluck Daniel Atkinson represents startups and established companies, venture and private equity funds, and entrepreneurs in a variety of industries including technology, healthcare, venture capital, and consumer products.
Our team works with clients to understand their goals, then creates a strategy to achieve those goals. If aggressive litigation is required, our attorneys are skilled at pressuring opponents and winning trials and arbitrations.
When an all-out fight is too risky or too expensive, we position the case for settlement while avoiding costly and unnecessary sideshows like discovery battles.
Business disputes come in countless variations, and we have a broad range of experience. Our lawyers have guided clients to excellent outcomes in:
- High-dollar contract disputes, such as:
- Software licensing arrangements
- Professional services contracts
- Vendor/supplier disputes
- “Business divorces” involving conflict among business owners and principals:
- Partnership and LLC disputes
- Conflicts among co-founders
- Duty of care litigation, including:
- Officer and director breaches of fiduciary duty
- SEC investigations
- Trade secret misappropriation claims
- Shareholder litigation
And many other types of commercial disputes.
Representative Matters
- We represented a consulting firm of vaccine specialists in a lawsuit brought against it by a pharmaceutical company regarding ownership rights of intellectual property and appropriate licensing criteria. After fending off a motion for preliminary injunction, despite being the defendant in the matter, we were able to secure payments to our client of close to $1 million and collect our client’s attorney’s fees from their insurer.
- A Honolulu-based venture capital management firm (and its managers) retained Gluck Daniel Atkinson in a dispute with the limited partners of the related VC fund over alleged breaches of governance and fiduciary duty obligations. We were able to negotiate and resolve the claims by agreeing to a favorable buy-out by the limited partners of our clients’ interests in the underlying management company and fund, resulting in a complete “divorce” between the parties.
- We represented a Bay Area venture capital firm in a dispute with a disgruntled officer of the management company for the fund. We secured a settlement agreement with full releases by agreeing to allow certain vesting rights of the officer to be retained in exchange for her resignation from the management firm.
- We substituted into a major litigation matter on behalf of the defendants (a mortgage company and its owners) in a federal court dispute brought by the liquidating trust for the mortgage company (which had previously been inserted into the company to liquidate it to resolve Chapter 11 proceedings). We successfully obtained a settlement for the clients in which they ended up paying only a modest fraction of the amounts being sought (over $6 million).
- A group of homeowners in Napa Valley retained the firm to represent them in a dispute with a nearby vineyard and winery that had sought an amended conditional use permit from the County of Napa greatly expanding the winery’s ability to host large events and a vast increase in smaller events, which the homeowners deemed excessive given proximity of the winery to the individuals’ homes. We persuaded the Napa Valley Planning Commission to cut back significantly on the winery’s proposed amendment, and then were able to obtain additional restrictions and concessions in a post-decision settlement among all the parties.
- DCH Molecular Diagnostics v. NVS Technologies: Representation of DCH, a medical technology company, as counsel of record in Santa Clara Superior Court in an action for specific enforcement and breach of a patent and technology license agreement. After signing on as trial counsel, and working with licensing co-counsel, Matt drafted and filed a motion for summary judgment that prompted the negotiated resolution of the case, just three months after Gluck Daniel Atkinson became co-counsel and before the motion was to be heard.
We are a group of talented lawyers in a culture defined by teamwork, integrity, creativity, and excellence.