Choate Partners Named Top “Women in Business Law”

Four Choate partners – Karen F. Copenhaver, A. Silvana “Nan” Giner, Dr. Brenda Herschbach Jarrell, and Joan A. Lukey – have been named to the prestigious top “Women in Business Law” list for 2017. The list, compiled annually, honors the globe’s leading women lawyers making exceptional contributions to the industry on behalf of their firms and clients.

Ms. Copenhaver is a partner in the Firm’s Business and Technology Group and focuses her practice on technology transfers and licensing of intellectual property, particularly in the areas of patent and software licensing. She is widely considered one of the world’s top IP strategists and also serves as a director of intellectual property strategy for the Linux Foundation. She received her JD from Dickinson School of Law in 1979 and her BA from Dickinson College in 1976.

Ms. Giner is co-chair of the Wealth Management Group. She has 30 years of experience delivering comprehensive counsel targeted to clients’ personal planning objectives, with an emphasis on sophisticated wealth transfer strategies. Her clients include company founders and other entrepreneurs, as well as domestic and international families. She also serves as a professional trustee for her many clients’ trusts. She received her JD from Stanford Law School in 1985 and her BA, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1982.

Dr. Jarrell is co-chair of the Life Sciences and Intellectual Property Groups. An IP lawyer with keen business savvy, her extensive technical credentials make her well versed in a wide variety of technologies in the biotech, pharmaceutical, and specialty chemical industries. Dr. Jarrell has experience representing companies and institutions at all stages of the life sciences business lifecycle, as well as those who invest in them. She received her JD, cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1998 and her PhD from the University of California, San Francisco in biochemistry and molecular biology in 1993. She received an MA and a BA in chemistry, magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1988.

Ms. Lukey is chair of the Complex Trial and Appellate Litigation Group. A preeminent trial lawyer, she has tried complex business, products liability, professional liability, personal injury, First Amendment, and other cases in state and federal court in Massachusetts and around the country. She has tried over 100 jury trials, and numerous bench trials and arbitrations in all aspects of business disputes. She is also an accomplished appellate lawyer, having argued approximately 60 federal and state appeals. She received her JD, cum laude, Order of the Coif, from Boston College Law School, and her BA, magna cum laude, from Smith College.