Northern Virginia

Overview

Our Northern Virginia office, established in 2001, handles complex legal issues confronting businesses in the technology, government contracting, and real estate industries, as well as their investors and acquirors. We offer clients a comprehensive understanding of the business, legal, and public policy issues confronting them and knowledge of Virginia's federal and state courts. Our work encompasses mergers and acquisitions, private equity, venture capital, public securities offerings and compliance, technology and new media transactions, intellectual property protection, biotechnology and life sciences, government contracts, and commercial real estate. Our litigators handle large, complex cases nationwide, including class actions, multiparty cases, and multidistrict matters, and have significant experience in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, a leading forum for technology-related litigation. Our government contracts lawyers also have substantial experience with matters before the boards of contract appeals, Court of Federal Claims, and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

We handle substantial merger and acquisition transactions, involving publicly traded corporations and privately held companies in various industries, including many such transactions for local companies. Private equity is one of our strengths. We represent some of the region's largest funds, as well as many located elsewhere. We are highly experienced in structuring and negotiating venture capital and other early-stage financings, particularly for clients in information technology, biotech, telecommunications, software, and new media businesses. We counsel venture capital investors and emerging companies on legal matters at every stage of development, with cost-effective representation.

Some other highlights of our practice in Northern Virginia:

• Corporate Finance. Our firm's long-standing corporate finance practice has fostered strong relationships in capital markets. We frequently serve as counsel in public offerings, particularly for IT and biotech companies. We also counsel on trust-preferred offerings by financial institutions and Rule 144A debt offerings and represent publicly traded companies on compliance with federal securities laws, particularly Sarbanes-Oxley.
• Government Contracts. Our government contracts attorneys are experienced in all aspects of federal contracting, including protest litigation; claims; technical data rights; government contracts issues that arise in connection with corporate re-organizations, consolidations, mergers, and acquisitions; small business; export controls; termination; cost and pricing; national security; employment; and trade secret matters. Many attorneys in the government contracts practice have former government experience and bring perspectives from the government to litigation and transactional advice.
• Intellectual Property and Technology. Intellectual property rights are high among the concerns of our clients in Northern Virginia. Our team crafts intellectual property advice to promote and protect a client's strategic business objectives and interests. Our attorneys are experienced in development, licensing, exploitation, protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.
• Life Sciences. The firm has a decades-long involvement in the life sciences, representing pharmaceutical companies before the US Food and Drug Administration and in myriad transactional, regulatory, and litigation matters. Our practice has expanded to include biotech and medical device companies, nonprofits involved in life sciences, and university tech-transfer organizations.
• Real Estate. Our real estate team works with clients to evaluate, develop, and implement their real estate goals, mindful always of the tax and other implications of real estate transactions. We represent developers, real estate investment trusts, lenders, public-private partnerships, and institutional investors, among others. Our clients benefit greatly from our interdisciplinary approach and from Arnold & Porter's highly skilled lawyers with whom we regularly work in the related areas of securities, tax, environmental law, bankruptcy, government contracts, privatizations, international transactions, and litigation.