Senior Director, Associate General Counsel - Head of Patent Litigation

The Position

Reporting directly to the Global Head of Litigation, and serving as a member of the litigation leadership team, the Senior Director, Associate General Counsel
- Head of Patent Litigation will lead a team of attorneys focused on defending the company’s innovations, and work in close partnership with the company’s business and IP colleagues to advance the Company’s mission. The Head of Patent Litigation will serve as a senior partner and strategist for the Company, directly managing patent and trade secret matters, while also supporting other commercial litigation and the litigation strategy of the organization on a global basis.

• Lead and manage a team of intellectual property litigation attorneys focused on patent and trade secret litigation, designing and driving global litigation strategies which are innovative, high value, business enabling, and global impact and alignment across sister companies, with an emphasis on BPCIA biosimilar and Hatch-Waxman ANDA matters.
• Assess, communicate and mitigate risk, and identify and exploit new opportunities and approaches, leveraging both a knowledge of industry trends and of the competitive landscape across Genentech and Roche portfolios.
• Deliver team leadership and coaching in a global matrixed environment, inspiring the team to perform at their best, modeling key behaviors, and optimizing growth opportunities and capabilities to successfully contribute and operate in the global environment.
• Organize work of the team, oversee workload and resource allocation, and support direct reports on the prioritization of high-value work and assignments.
• Serve as an active and engaged member of Genentech’s litigation leadership team.
• Advise senior executives and leaders of affected business units on the risks, benefits, and likelihood of successful outcomes associated with IP litigation matters and recommend and influence significant decisions about such matters.
• Actively and effectively partner with stakeholders at all levels of the global organization and across all phases of research, drug development and commercialization to provide business enabling strategies, counseling and recommendations, to include finding partnership opportunities with Legal colleagues and the business in service of the Company’s legal priorities of connecting around the work and co-owning business outcomes.
• Set big picture IP litigation and business strategy that best serves the Company’s long-term vision and goals and envisions and prepares for upcoming challenges.
• Manage external litigation counsel relationships, including compliance with internal guidelines for fee arrangements, budgets, and billing.
• Directly manage a variety of litigations as needed and where time permits, including both IP and commercial litigation.
• Travel as needed in conjunction with managing and resolving disputes.

• J.D. degree from an ABA-accredited law school and current “good standing” admission to at least one U.S. state bar, and eligible to apply to California’s Registered In-House Counsel program.

• At least 12-15 years of litigation experience in-house and/or at a top-tier law firm, with deep experience with life sciences IP litigation (ideally including BPCIA and/or ANDA matters) and stand-up trial experience.

• Demonstrated experience and track record of success in:
  • Leading teams and managing people, either directly, or indirectly as part of a matrixed team
  • Closely managing and setting innovative strategies in patent litigations
  • Developing and implementing global strategies or initiatives, both substantive and operational
  • Successfully negotiating and reaching favorable settlement agreements
• A degree (undergraduate or graduate) in a biological science or chemistry is a plus but not required.

Visionary

• Impacts the business by sensing and proactively seizing opportunities to create value; being an excellent strategist and influencer; acts with courage and integrity in tackling difficult or challenging issues within as well as beyond the practice area.

Architect

• Proactively evolves and innovates our substantive practices in Litigation to meet…