Lawyers

Steve Lawson is senior counsel in Gordon & Rees's Dallas office. Mr. Lawson works on transactions and litigation, including corporate counseling, negotiation, drafting, and advocacy. His corporate work has included both public and private financings, and he has prepared and closed many and varied corporate and commercial agreements in private practice throughout his career, alongside his litigation work for clients large (Fortune 10) and small.

Mr. Lawson served as Vice-President, Legal Affairs, General Counsel, and Secretary to a New York Stock Exchange biotechnol­ogy compa­ny for several years before returning to the private practice of law.  In that role, he supervised all legal aspects of company opera­tions, including corpo­rate governance; securi­ties (SEC, NYSE); transac­tions; litigation; cor­porate commu­nica­tions; safety and environmental; con­tract adminis­tra­tion; trade regu­la­tion; intellectual property prosecution and licens­ing; employment­; and general legal and business counseling to the company's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Presi­dent, Board of Direc­tors, and other executive officers.  

On the corporate side, Mr. Lawson conducted an over­haul of the company's intel­lec­tu­al proper­ty estate and management, including termination and hiring of patent firms and hiring of patent specialists.  He served on all manage­ment com­mittees, and kept the minute book for all board and shareholder meetings.  He supervised and prepared public disclosures for the company (8-Ks, press releases, and annual reports).

He supervised major corporate litiga­tion, includ­ing cases claiming securities fraud, patent infringe­ment, wrong­ful termi­na­tion, and misappro­priation of trade secrets.  He also resolved numerous internal and external disputes short of litigation.  

On the transactional side, Mr. Lawson negotiat­ed and pre­pared major product and patent license agree­ments and amend­ments (outlicensing and inlicensing) with domes­tic and interna­tional compa­nies and not-for-profit institutions. 

His recent practice has included acquisitions and divestitures in addition to his litigation work. During his tenure at Gordon & Rees, he has successfully argued five appeals in state and federal court.

Mr. Lawson has taught corporate law as well as legal research, reasoning, and writing.  He has a special interest in legal communications of all kinds – oral advocacy, and adversarial and transactional writing.  He believes that today's corporate client requires counsel who can write and argue an appeal, and turn around and handle a corporate transaction, while being clear and persuasive in both pursuits.  When appropriate, he uses graphical representations of complex fact patterns or deals to clarify issues for colleagues, clients, adversaries, and judges. 

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