Criminal Law

• Criminal Defense
  Mr. Schoenfeld also has extensive experience with appellate litigation in United States Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. He has been involved in briefing and oral argument for matters involving a wide range of issues of both federal and state law, including federal Indian law, intellectual property, antitrust, banking law, contract law, and criminal law and procedure. Mr. Schoenfeld has represented clients before the United States Courts of Appeals for the First, Second, Sixth, Ninth, Eleventh and Federal Circuits, and has presented oral arguments in the Second and Ninth Circuits.
• Traffic Violations
  TransUnion in its investment in Drivers History, a leading provider of traffic violations and criminal court data for insurance risk management
• Fraud
  WilmerHale has defended clients in hundreds of class, derivative, shareholder and individual actions alleging securities fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and other corporate misconduct.
• Restraining Order
  Ascend Ecom: Ascend Ecom (Ascend) is a company that offers logistics, wholesale distribution and e-commerce investment management services. The FTC filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Central District of California against the company with allegations that the company falsely claims its AI-powered tools help consumers quickly earn thousands of dollars a month in passive income by opening online storefronts. According to the FTC’s complaint, Ascend charges consumers tens of thousands of dollars to start online stores on e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Walmart, Etsy and TikTok, while also requiring them to spend tens of thousands more on inventory. According to the complaint, Ascend advertises online that consumers can make five figures or more per month in passive income by investing in Ascend’s e-commerce business opportunity and that consumers’ profit margins can be up to 40% or sometimes even 50%. The complaint highlights that Ascend claimed to use proprietary software and AI to maximize clients’ business success. However, according to the complaint, none of Ascend’s clients earn the advertised income. The FTC’s complaint includes nine counts against Ascend for violations of the FTC Act, the Business Opportunity Rule and the Consumer Review Fairness Act (CRFA). The counts are for (i) false or unsubstantiated earnings claims; (ii) deceptive claims of a “risk free” offer with buyback guarantee; (iii) unfairness; (iv) misrepresentations regarding income or profits; (v) disclosure document violations; (vi) earnings claims to prospective buyers violations; (vii) industry financial, earnings or performance information violations; (viii) general media earnings claims violations; and (ix) CRFA violations. The case is ongoing, and the court has issued a temporary restraining order on the defendants, temporarily halting the alleged scheme and putting the business under the control of a receiver.

Business and Corporate Law

• Corporate Law
  WilmerHale lawyers provide timely and thoughtful analysis of trends and developments on global topics that span across investigations, regulations, corporate governance, transactions and more.
• Mergers and Acquisitions
  Mr. Silva's practice covers a wide range of matters across the asset management industry, including strategic advice on key business and regulatory matters, structuring and organizing new products, seed capital arrangements, joint ventures, distribution arrangements and compliance matters. In addition, Mr. Silva's practice includes advising clients on mergers and acquisitions in the investment management industry. Mr. Silva also has experience in advising registered investment companies and their boards, and he regularly advises traditional operating companies on investment company status matters.
• Business Disputes
  Ms. Evans is a member of the American Bar Association (Business Law Section) and the DC Bar Association. Ms. Evans is also a member of the WilmerHale Asian Pacific American Affinity Group and the WilmerHale Diversity Committee. In addition, she is active with the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.
• Business Transactions
  Stephanie Evans advises domestic and international clients on a wide range of corporate transactions, with a particular focus on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances and financings. She regularly advises boards and special committees in connection with transactions and provides advice on governance and commercial transactions. Her clients include private and public companies in a variety of industries, including financial services, defense and technology. She is active with emerging growth companies throughout their development cycle (see more on Ms. Evans’ emerging growth company practice on WilmerHaleLaunch.com ). She was previously Vice Chair of the Corporate Practice Group.
• Trade Secrets
  Clients turn to us because we combine the specialized legal and technical skills normally associated with boutique intellectual property firms with the broad business and litigation capabilities of a major general practice firm. Like boutique firms, we counsel inventors, R&D teams and management on patent drafting and prosecution, reexaminations and interferences, trademark, copyright and trade secret protection, and IP portfolio development. Unlike most patent practices, however, we also offer interdisciplinary experience in technology transfer and licensing, litigation, sponsored and collaborative research agreements, and IP-related due diligence. We understand how IP relates to a company’s business and recognize that IP is a valuable asset.
• Intellectual Property
  Schmidtlein, a leading international trade lawyer with over three decades in a variety of high-profile roles has a unique blend of skill, perspective and experience to help clients navigate their most sensitive issues. Her practice will focus on the US trade remedy laws and Section 337 trade-related intellectual property disputes.
• Unfair Competition
• Antitrust
  Demonstrating WilmerHale’s frequent status as first among equals in major antitrust litigation with multiple co-counsel representing numerous defendants, the firm led the brief writing efforts for the groups of defendants in both the real estate and Ivy league cases.

Employment Law

• Employment Discrimination
  Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP (WilmerHale) is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to compliance with all applicable laws prohibiting employment discrimination. It is our policy to take all employment actions and make all employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, citizenship status, genetic predisposition or carrier status, disability, military status, status as a disabled or other protected veteran or any other protected status under applicable law. Consistent with its obligations under applicable laws, WilmerHale will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. In addition, WilmerHale has implemented an Affirmative Action Program designed to support equal employment opportunity.
• Employment Contract
  The US Department of Justice (DOJ) entered the scene as a new regulator of sensitive data this year with the release of its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) regarding transfers of bulk US sensitive personal data or government-related data to “countries of concern,” such as China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba. The proposed rule defines six categories of “sensitive personal data”: (1) covered personal identifiers, (2) precise geolocation data, (3) biometric identifiers, (4) human genomic data, (5) personal health data, and (6) personal financial data. The proposed rules also placed prohibitions on foreign transactions that would give entities from “countries of concern” access to specified volumes of data within the six categories. Despite the rule’s narrow scope, it would impose additional organizational responsibilities on companies engaged in vendor agreements, employment agreements, and investment agreements that qualify as “restricted transactions.” The DOJ issued the final rule on December 27, 2024. The rule will go into effect on April 8, 2025.
• Employment Litigation
  In addition to her patent litigation experience, Ms. Wigmore has represented clients in cases involving the misappropriation of trade secrets, unfair competition, breach of contract, employment disputes, civil rights claims and test security issues.

Immigration Law

• Student Visas

Trusts and Estates

• Power of Attorney
  Additionally, you may authorize an agent to make a request on your behalf. To designate an agent, please provide a written and signed document by both you and the agent that authorizes the agent to act on your behalf. You may also use a power of attorney. We will still require you to provide information to allow us to reasonably verify that you are the person about whom we collected personal information.

Finance Law

• Bankruptcy
  Sophisticated knowledge of the bankruptcy process, combined with top-notch appellate and trial experience and the perspective and insight required to address a wide range of bankruptcy litigation and regulation issues.