Portola Valley man named a 'lawyer of the year' Portola Valley man named a 'lawyer of the year' (March 24, 2004)

By David Boyce
Almanac Staff Writer

California Lawyer Magazine has named intellectual property law expert, trial attorney and Portola Valley resident Jim Pooley to a short list of California attorneys, all of whom were chosen for the 2003 lawyer-of-the-year award.

The magazine named Mr. Pooley -- an intellectual property partner in the Palo Alto office of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP -- in recognition of a $90 million technology copyright settlement he and his team at Milbank arranged in June 2003 between ESS Technology of Fremont and MediaTek Inc. of Taiwan.

"While it is a great honor to be recognized as one of California's leading intellectual property lawyers, our success ... always comes from a team effort," Mr. Pooley said in a statement.

The magazine recognizes 20 to 30 California attorneys every year from several areas of practice. Three of Milbank's intellectual property attorneys made the list this year.

Mr. Pooley is a specialist in patent, trade secret, copyright and complex technology-related litigation and is listed in the Guide to the World's Leading Patent Law Experts. He has practiced in Silicon Valley since 1973.

He is a director of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and an adjunct professor at the University of California's Boalt Hall School of Law. Mr. Pooley is also a member of the National Academies of Sciences committee on intellectual property rights. He is the author of an instructional video for jurors in patent cases.

Mr. Pooley graduated as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar from Columbia School of Law in 1973, and holds a bachelor's degree, with honors, from Lafayette College.

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