James R. Griffin is a partner in the Mergers & Acquisitions practice in Weil’s Silicon Valley office. He represents both private and publicly held companies from a broad range of industries in mergers and acquisitions and related transactions, negotiating and advising them on a wide range of acquisition and disposition transactions, including public and private company mergers, stock acquisitions, asset acquisitions, divestitures, auction transactions, defensive strategies, going-private transactions, as well as fiduciary duties of directors and other related matters.
Mr. Griffin is an active member of the American Bar Association's Mergers and Acquisitions Committee, which comprises more than 4,000 M&A specialists from all over the world, and serves as Chair of the Mergers and Acquisitions Committee’s Subcommittee on Public Company Acquisitions. Mr. Griffin previously served as Chair of the Committee's M&A Market Trends Subcommittee, which tracks trends in public company and private company M&A transactions, and the Project Chair of the ABA’s 2008 and 2009 Strategic Buyer/Public Company Target Deal Points Studies.
Mr. Griffin is a frequent speaker on merger and acquisition topics, and has appeared at a number of national level programs, including the International Bar Association's Mergers and Acquisitions Conference, the University of Texas Mergers and Acquisitions Institute, and numerous programs sponsored by the Mergers and Acquisitions Committee of the ABA. Mr. Griffin is also a member of the adjunct faculty at Pepperdine University School of Law, where he co-teaches, with Chief Justice Myron T. Steele of the Delaware Supreme Court, a course entitled “Selected Issues in the Acquisition of Publicly Held Corporations.” He has also participated in M&A-related presentations at Pepperdine University School of Law, as well as the Stanford and University of Pennsylvania Law Schools.
Mr. Griffin’s recent experience includes representation of:
- Merz Pharma Group in its topping bid to acquire Obagi Medical Products
- Riverbed Technology’s acquisition of OPNET Technologies
- Synopsys in its acquisition of Magma Design Automation
- Blackboard in its sale to Providence Equity Partners
- Applied Materials in the acquisition of Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates
- U.S. Renal Care in its acquisition of Dialysis Corporation of America
- Brink’s Home Security in its sale to Tyco International
- Intervoice in its sale to Convergys
- Tesoro Corporation in responding to an unsolicited tender offer from Tracinda Corporation
- Lone Star Technologies in its sale to United States Steel Corporation
- Rent-A-Center, Inc. in its acquisition of Rent-Way, Inc.
Bar Admissions
California; Texas