About Gesmer Updegrove

Gesmer Updegrove LLP is a Boston-based law firm that specializes in representing technology clients. Our clients are individual entrepreneurs, private and public companies, venture capitalists and major educational non-profit institutions. We meet the evolving needs of our clients by bringing our extensive experience in representing companies engaged in cutting-edge areas of business, including software technologies, the Internet, electronic commerce and medical technologies. Ninety-five percent of our practice is in the technology sector and our firm represents one of the largest technology practice groups in New England. At the same time, we bring the focus and attention of a smaller firm to the representation of our clients.

Our firm’s mission is to provide outstanding services as both business and legal advisors, informed by our in-depth knowledge of what it takes to create and grow successful businesses. We take pride in the talent of our attorneys and professional staff, the depth of their expertise and the teamwork they employ in understanding our clients' business objectives, resolving problems and disputes, and helping our clients reach their business goals. We are dedicated to using our legal skills, business and financial contacts and judgment to helping our clients succeed, because we know that if our clients succeed we will succeed as well.

A large part of our practice focuses on helping entrepreneurial companies utilizing software, Internet and electronic commerce technologies get started, protect their intellectual property assets, find financing, and structure and grow their businesses. We have extensive experience in private and venture capital financing, mergers and acquisitions and complex corporate partnership, joint venture and technology transactions. We have worked with many hundreds of technology companies that have gone from start-up through acquisition or initial public offering, or which continue as successful businesses under the ownership and management of their founders.

We are experts in the developing legal areas of e-commerce and Internet technologies, including issues related to electronic signatures and contracting, privacy, web site liability, domain name protection, federal and state laws regulating e-commerce, and the negotiation of legal agreements and contracts that reflect cutting-edge methods of doing business on the Internet.

In addition to technology companies and investors, we represent large public and private companies and institutions in their technology undertakings, whether they are contractual dealings with outside developers and suppliers of technologies that are critical to the internal operations of the company, the redeployment of bricks and mortar businesses over the Internet, or the technological commercialization of products or services, as in the case of new ventures involving electronic commerce. In addition, we have assisted scores of the top technology companies in the world to establish standard-setting consortia, and our firm is a national leader in this area of practice. As part of our service to our clients and others in the standards and open source communities, the firm has created, and maintains www.consortiuminfo.org and www.opensourcelegal.org. These web sites are detailed and up-to-date resources on consortia and standard-setting and open source issues.

We also have extensive expertise in protecting our clients’ business assets (including, most often, their intellectual property assets) through litigation counseling and, when necessary, aggressive, cost-effective advocacy. While our goal always is to help our clients resolve disputes and avoid litigation, we are well equipped to represent our clients in the state and federal courts, as well as in the context of alternative dispute forums such as arbitration and mediation.

Our practice encompasses services in a variety of additional areas that are needed by our clients, including trademark, copyright and patent filings, tax advice, international matters and employment law counseling (and litigation when needed).

In addition to the highest quality legal work, there are a number of critical values that have guided our growth and success:

• Cutting Edge Expertise. As a firm which focuses intensively on the technology sector, we stay current with the leading edge of those legal and business issues which are crucial to our clients. There are few emerging legal issues in the technology space which are not of immediate relevance to our clients, and we therefore commit to being on top of those issues.
   
• Partnership. We believe that we bring much more to our clients than pure legal expertise. We have worked with over a thousand technology clients, and this experience allows us to advise our clients on business and strategic matters which help them succeed. As a result, we attract clients who regard us as essential partners and advisors.
   
• Responsiveness to Our Clients. For most of our clients. time is of the essence. Our clients do business in “Internet time,” and we make every effort to provide them with the speed necessary to support them. We return all phone calls and e-mail promptly, and realize that timely responses from us are mission-critical to our clients’ success.
   
• Commitment to Our Lawyers. We are acutely aware that hiring talented lawyers and training them is critical to the long-term growth and success of the firm. Almost all of our lawyers are hired by us after they have worked for several years in the largest law firms in Boston or other major cities; some have been in-house counsel at leading technology companies. They come to us knowing that we provide opportunities for responsibility and advancement that may not be available in those firms, and that we have a strong commitment to further their professional development. Our partners provide weekly training sessions within the firm and we frequently send our attorneys to professional educational programs. We are constantly striving to ensure that our lawyers stay current in their areas of practice.
   
• Commitment to Technology. We are convinced that technology is essential to our ability to stay in close touch with our clients and provide them with the highest quality services, and therefore we invest heavily in technology. We invest both our money and our time in acquiring and learning about new technologies that will help us better support our clients.

Since its inception in 1986, the firm has grown steadily. We believe that these values have been critical to that success, and we will remain fully committed to them in the future.

For a presentation on the advantages that our firm brings to our emerging clients, you may wish to view or print out a copy of a presentation available at the following link; this presentation also contains lists of representative clients, venture funds which have recently invested in our clients, and recent mergers and acquisitions.