Paul Hastings LLP, a preeminent global law firm, announced today that leading technology dealmaker, Bill Choe, has joined the firm as a partner in the Mergers & Acquisitions practice and will be based in the firm’s Palo Alto office. Joining Choe from his prior firm is M&A partner Jason Rabbitt-Tomita, and a team of attorneys who work with the two are expected to follow.

Prior to joining Paul Hastings, Choe served as global head of the technology M&A practice and co-head of the global technology industry group at White & Case LLP. The arrival of Choe and his team adds further momentum to the growth of Paul Hastings’s Silicon Valley office and to the firm’s broader technology and M&A capability that has been recently enhanced by a series of blue-chip M&A, Finance and Funds, Private Equity and Capital Markets partner arrivals including Roger Barron from Linklaters and Anu Balasubramanian from DLA Piper in London, Joyce Xu from Simpson Thacher and Ira Kustin from Akin Gump in New York, and Kfir Abutbul from Willikie Farr in Houston.

“Our market-leading Corporate practices continue to grow through our focus on building where our clients are investing, such as London, New York and Silicon Valley,” said Seth Zachary, chair of Paul Hastings. “We are capitalizing on our strengths in global M&A and the tech sector and the addition of Bill and his team is the latest example of the market leading lawyers we are attracting as a result,” he added.

A widely recognized M&A leader, Bill Choe specializes in advising major high technology companies in their strategic acquisitions and sales in the United States and globally. “We’re confident our practices will flourish at Paul Hastings as a result of the firm’s highly regarded M&A support teams needed to handle large, complex domestic and cross-border tech M&A transactions, including intellectual property, tax, employment, and antitrust, national security, and other regulatory teams,” said Choe.

Joining forces with the firm’s premier Bay Area M&A/Private Equity team led by partners Mike Kennedy, Steve Camahort, Dana Kromm and Jeffrey Wolf, who joined Paul Hastings’ San Francisco office in 2016, Choe and Rabbitt-Tomita’s arrival is expected to enhance and accelerate opportunities for the firm’s tech-focused Corporate practice in the Bay Area.

“Since joining Paul Hastings we’ve been beneficiaries of the firm’s entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to invest in our practice,” said Steve Camahort. “The addition of Bill and his team presents numerous opportunities for us to immediately collaborate to create opportunities for our clients,” he added.

Paul Hastings’ M&A practice is regularly recognized in the global market for its work on high profile M&A matters. In particular, the firm is noted for its cross-border strength, business acumen and innovation. “Paul Hastings stands out for its strength in cross-border deals,” according to Chambers & Partners. The firm has been named “M&A Firm of the Year” in The Asian Lawyer, has received “M&A Deal of the Year” and related recognitions from The Financial Times, International Finance Law Review, Latin Finance, The Asian Lawyer and China Law and Business and its lawyers have been recognized as leading dealmakers by The Financial Times, The American Lawyer, Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500, among others.

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