Team
The Pacific Crest team is comprised of skilled legal professionals with extensive experience across a variety of corporate transactions. Each member brings a keen understanding of today's legal markets from succeeding at some of the most well-respected and largest law firms in the world. Most importantly, each member also brings a desire to personally and efficiently serve clients. Pacific Crest takes pride in delivering the brainpower of big firm legal services in a personalized manner.
| Jake Schwarz » | Kenji Iida » | James Prenton » | Hope J. Anderson » |
Jake Schwarz
Jake focuses on representing emerging growth and high technology companies. He has a broad range of corporate expertise, including advising clients with respect to business formations, equity and debt financings, mergers & acquisitions, licensing and joint ventures, intellectual property protection, and employment law counseling. His clients include technology companies in industries such as software, biotechnology, semiconductors, systems integration, environmental sciences, and aeronautics as well as businesses in more traditional industries such as food, communications, educational services, and retail.
Jake was most recently a partner at K&L Gates where he was responsible for founding and building out the firm's Silicon Valley corporate practice. Prior to K&L Gates, he was a shareholder at Thoits, Love, Hershberger and McLean in Palo Alto where as part of his business law practice he headed the firm's Trademark, Copyright and Trade Secrets group. Jake began his legal career as a commercial litigator with the San Francisco office of Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe.
Jake holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. magna cum laude from Claremont McKenna College. Originally from Daly City, he resides in San Francisco with his wife, daughter and son.
Kenji Iida
Kenji's practice concentrates in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, venture capital financings, intellectual property licensing and distribution transactions and general corporate law. His experience includes extensive corporate counseling to emerging growth companies and venture capital and strategic investors. Kenji speaks Japanese fluently and has considerable experience representing Japanese companies and investors in their international business transactions.
Kenji was most recently a corporate attorney in the Palo Alto office of Dorsey & Whitney where he led the firm's Japan Practice Group. Prior to Dorsey & Whitney he was an associate with Ritchey Fisher Whitman & Klein in Palo Alto where as a part of his business law practice he was the firm's principal trademark attorney. Kenji began his legal career as a corporate attorney with the San Francisco office of Thelen LLP.
Kenji received his law degree from Columbia University School of Law and undergraduate degree in economics from UCLA.
James Prenton
James represents domestic and international clients in a broad range of business law matters. He has significant experience with commercial and technology transactions (licensing, outsourcing, R&D and sales/distribution agreements) and corporate matters (formation, financing, strategic alliances, joint-ventures and M&A). He also regularly represents Japanese companies with respect to their U.S. operations. In this capacity, he advises senior management and in-house legal teams in connection with entity formation, corporate finance, M&A, commercial transactions, intellectual property and technology-related counseling, executive immigration, dispute resolution, and labor and employment. His diverse clientele include those in a wide range of industries such as entertainment and media, nanotechnology, private equity/venture capital, telecommunications, Internet commerce, semiconductors, life sciences, food and nutritional supplements and clean-tech.
Prior to co-founding Pacific Crest Law Partners, James was a corporate partner in the Palo Alto office of K&L Gates where he also led the firm's Japan practice. He also practiced in the San Diego offices of several national and regional law firms. James was born and lived in Japan for more than eighteen years, and is fluent in Japanese. Utilizing his language and cultural background, he regularly counsels and negotiates in both English and Japanese.
James received his J.D. from Loyola Law School Los Angeles, an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University's Graziadio School of Business Management and a B.A. from San Diego State University.
Hope J. Anderson
Prior to joining Pacific Crest, Hope practiced with the Mayer Brown firm where she focused on securities and tax law. Most recently, she was a resident of Mayer Brown's Silicon Valley office. In addition to aiding clients with general corporate, technology licensing and IP matters, Hope's practice also includes counseling on matters such as ERISA, labor and employment, real estate, and tax planning. While at Mayer Brown, Hope worked on a variety of stock options backdating cases, tax controversies, and securities and commercial litigation matters, allowing Hope to bring a seasoned, common sense approach to her counseling. Her clients have ranged from large multi-national corporations to start-up technology companies in a variety of industries.
Hope holds a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, and a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
