Sycamore Legal® is an unusual collection of thought leaders, authors, teachers, and former in-house counsel.
David Tollen is the author of the American Bar Association’s bestseller, The Tech Contracts Handbook: Cloud Computing Agreements, Software Licenses, and Other IT Contracts for Lawyers and Businesspeople (ABA Publishing / IP Section 2021). He also teaches technology contracts at U.C. Berkeley Law School – and he serves as an expert witness in litigation on the same topic. And David provides in-house training on drafting and negotiating IT contracts, for lawyers and businesspeople, both in the U.S. and abroad, as the founder of Tech Contracts Academy, LLC. His course was, “easily the most helpful, on-point and productive training I’ve received as a lawyer,” according to one recent student.
Both David and Kathy O’Sullivan have served as in-house counsel – in Kathy’s case, for twenty years. So they know the challenges of running a business and the practical concerns lawyers sometimes miss. Both also have extensive experience with litigation – managing it, litigating cases, and in David’s case as an expert witness. So they know how to avoid it.
In addition, the Sycamore team has an international background. Deborah Pulido is fluent in French and lived six years in Paris, while both David and Kathy have lived in England, and David studied law at Cambridge University. And David and Deborah have significant experience with international transactions.
All three Sycamore Legal® lawyers have impressive institutional and educational backgrounds. Deborah worked much of her career at Folger, Levin & Khan, while David learned his trade at Morrison & Foerster and Kathy began her career at Lillick & Charles, now Nixon Peabody. And the team’s collective law school alma maters include Harvard, U.C. Berkeley, Cambridge University, and UCLA. Deborah served as executive editor of The California Law Review at Berkeley, while Kathy edited and wrote for the UCLA Women’s Law Journal.
Finally, Sycamore Legal® has been named U.S. and California technology contracts law firm of the year by a bewildering array of publications, many years in a row.