Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt announced today that Michael Cofield, Joanna Lee and Paige Spratt have been named shareholders at the firm. Michael, who specializes in intellectual property, is part of Schwabe’s Manufacturing, Distribution and Retail and Technology industry groups. Joanna is part of the Technology industry group and represents tech companies, tech standards consortia and open source software foundations with respect to their intellectual property, corporate and commercial matters. Paige currently specializes in construction management and is part of Schwabe’s Real Estate and Construction and Transportation, Ports and Maritime industry groups.

“Michael, Joanna and Paige are incredibly talented attorneys who have become an integral part of the firm and its future,” said Graciela Gomez Cowger, CEO at Schwabe. “All three of these attorneys are highly skilled and will contribute to the strategic positioning of Schwabe as a growing, industry focused and innovative firm.”

Michael Cofield

Manufacturing, Distribution and Retail
Technology

Mike Cofield has helped technology businesses, including several innovative Fortune 500 companies in the Silicon Forest, Silicon Valley, Seattle and other technology hubs across the nation, prepare and file both U.S. patent applications and Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications. He is also experienced in helping new businesses manage their patent portfolios, from portfolio inception to acquisition. Mike has been practicing patent prosecution before the U.S. Patent Office for more than fifteen years. His experience includes prosecution of patent applications in fields such as cloud computing, networking, computer architecture, operating system software, video encoding, social networking applications, connected vehicle service software, security software, resistive memory and electro-mechanical technologies. 

Joanna Lee

Technology

Joanna Lee helps organizations develop and implement intellectual property strategies, manage risk wisely and structure their contractual relationships and governance frameworks to support their strategic goals. Joanna assists businesses, technology standards consortia and open source software foundations and projects with their intellectual property, commercial contracting and corporate matters. She serves as a strategic advisor in the areas of: development; licensing and transfer of intellectual property assets; free and open source software licensing; Intellectual Property Rights policies; liaison relationships; contributor agreements; certification and testing programs and tools; specification and standards development; and proprietary licensing terms and transactions.  In the Internet space, she helps clients navigate laws governing e-commerce, social media, contests, sweepstakes and promotions and privacy and data security issues. Finally, Joanna advises on domestic and international commercial transactions, joint ventures and collaboration agreements and on corporate structuring and governance.

Paige Spratt

Real Estate and Construction

Transportation, Ports and Maritime

Paige Spratt combines real world construction experience with legal know-how to help contractors find practical solutions to complex problems. Paige handles arbitrations and lawsuits for issues ranging from lien foreclosures, construction claims and public contracting to employment disputes and complex breach of contract claims. She strives to help her clients fully understand the litigation process and to present creative, practical solutions. Clients also turn to Paige for transactional assistance. She focuses on achieving client goals and mitigating risk in construction contracts, purchase and sale agreements, services contracts, purchase orders and other legal documents. Paige is proactive in ensuring that her clients fully understand the contracting process and can take ownership of contract terms.