Kaye Scholer

• Recent surveys have consistently recognized Kaye Scholer as having one of the country's leading IT, outsourcing and transactional IP practices. In surveys of clients and peer attorneys conducted in each year from 2003 to 2009 by Chambers USA and Chambers Global, legal research firms, Kaye Scholer received a high ranking in the category for law firms, and the firm's practice chair, William A. Tanenbaum, was highly ranked in the category for individual attorneys. The technology agreement and outsourcing practice is handled by Kaye Scholer's specialty Technology, Intellectual Property & Outsourcing Group.
  
  
• According to Chambers, Mr. Tanenbaum has built "one of New York City's most outstanding transactional IT law practices," and is a "well-respected attorney with a well-respected approach [who] provides litigation, transactional work and strategic counseling on a range of technology and outsourcing-related issues."
  
  
• Chambers found that Kaye Scholer has a "highly talented team" that has "secured a number of important deals of late" and is "a player in technology transactions."
  
  
• Chambers concluded that "an interesting mix of [specialties] makes Kaye Scholer a popular group for many clients. The pharmaceutical industry has proved the most fertile of pastures for the group.... [C]lients [are] drawn by the strength of the team's IP counsel and specifically the niche it has carved out in global data security matters. The group's pedigree in a variety of outsourcing transactions is another major string in its bow and has also attracted many financial institution clients."
  
  
• Chambers identified practice chair William A. Tanenbaum as "an internationally recognized intellectual property, technology and outsourcing lawyer" and as a "leading light" with "household names" in his client roster. Clients "highlight his IP expertise, but commend his ‘command of the whole deal.'" Chambers named him as a "Leading Individual", awarded him "Recommended" ratings in Outsourcing and in Technology & IT Outsourcing and selected him as a "Notable Practitioner" at the national level in Outsourcing. It found that he handles a "wide variety of complex matters, often at the leading edge of technology," and concluded he is "thorough and experienced," "an effective negotiator," "good at communicating with clients," "focuses on important issues" and "has the ability to put technical legal issues in language our business people can understand."
  
  
• Kaye Scholer's practice includes the representation of leading technology vendors and service providers. It provides transactional, strategic intellectual property and litigation services.
  
  
• Kaye Scholer is a law firm leader in Green IT and Green Outsourcing. Its lawyers are knowledgeable about the EPA's EPEAT certification program and the Department of Energy's "Save Energy Now" and "Data Center Energy Profiler" programs, and other metrics and tools for improving the energy and technology efficiency of data centers and corporate IT infrastructure.
  
  
• Kaye Scholer lawyers are innovators in developing cost-saving techniques for developing contracting methodologies to bring contract negotiations to conclusion in a time and cost-effective manner. They have also lead in the creation of private sector agreements to reduce power consumption and emissions in outsourcing and technology service agreements. They provide leadership in coordinating data center re-engineering with the development of corporate carbon-neutral and environmental sustainability policies and the execution of global carbon credit trading programs to implement such policies. The firm has experience in using real-time data and managing data life-cycles as a means of saving clients time and money and energy costs without changing the underlying technology.

Types of Outsourcing Handled by Kaye Scholer

• Kaye Scholer handles the following types of outsourcing, among others: outsourcing transactions for major financial institutions; IT (including ADM, virtualization, new application development, existing application enhancement system design and application migration); managed services; HRO; business process outsourcing; outsourcing manufacturing (including OEM, contract manufacturing, built-to-order, EMS and ODM); supply chain and procurement outsourcing; IP and innovation intensive business transformation outsourcing; data mining and management; and R&D, knowledge process and Green Technology outsourcing.

• Kaye Scholer's IT, Outsourcing and Transactional IP practice is distinguished by: the depth of its expertise in negotiating IT and outsourcing contracts and in privacy and data management; the membership of true intellectual property and technology lawyers in the Technology, Intellectual Property & Outsourcing Group, many of whom have MBAs or engineering degrees as well as legal degrees, can read and write code, and have advanced substantive knowledge of new technologies at a technical level; the firm's overseas offices; the Group's experience with regulations and exchange rules applicable to IT and outsourcing in the financial services industry and with Green Technology standards and protocols; and the Group's work on over-the-horizon technology and knowledge of new IT and outsourcing business models. The firm also has a working relationship with an Indian law firm specializing in outsourcing in order to secure local legal services on a cost-effective basis.
  
  
• One of the partners in the Group is a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), which reflects Kaye Scholer's strength in security and encryption.
  
  
• The firm is regularly retained as special IP, information management and/or Green Technology counsel. The firm's IP lawyers successfully address the problems of defining and protecting innovations in technology outsourcing transactions, particularly where improvements result from the collaborative provider and customer activities. Kaye Scholer assists clients in strategically using IP and IT to increase market share.

• Clients regularly retain Kaye Scholer because of its years of experience in IT, outsourcing and technology transactions; the efficiency with which it works; its reasonable legal fees; its technical knowledge of IT; the depth of its IP experience; its ability to isolate and focus on the important issues; the practical business intelligence it brings to analyzing and closing deals; its ability to look over the horizon and address emerging issues; and its demonstrated ability to develop creative solutions to a client's business problems.
  

For example, the firm:

• drafts technology and outsourcing agreements to be used as an "early warning system" to assist executives in identifying and solving problems at an early stage;

• drafts SLAs and SOWs first to define contract scope and avoid the expense of re-writes of the master services agreement;
  
  
• combines force majeure and disaster recovery provisions;
  
  
• drives data protection down to the data level (protecting data only at the firewall is like building a fortress but ignoring the doors through which the data flows);
  
  
• implements data life cycle policies to enhance data mining and data protection;
  
  
• recommends benchmarking against best-of-breed companies;
  
  
• recommends the appointment of Data Managers and Energy Managers as well as Project Managers;
  
  
• recommends the prompt adoption of energy-reducing practices that have pay-back periods of less than 2 years and the creation of strategic plans and SLAs to implement technologies with longer pay-back periods;
  
  
• to expedite contract negotiation, establishes secure data rooms to provide service providers and customers with the information about the operational phase of technology arrangements in order to allow each side to better assess risks and better price the deal;
  
  
• has ongoing experience managing the risks of open-source software and creating corporate policies for data privacy and the sharing and transfer of data; and
  
  
• has practical experience in the competitive intelligence aspects of technology and outsourcing transactions.
  
  
• The firm's practice is headquartered in New York and operates with teams of lawyers from Kaye Scholer's Chicago, Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, Shanghai and Washington offices. Kaye Scholer co-sponsors a series of IT and outsourcing seminars.
  

• Kaye Scholer tailors its method of working with in-house counsel to meet specific client needs. In many cases, the firm handles all of the legal work in outsourcing deals from the RFP stage to final contract negotiation. In other cases, the firm shares the legal work with in-house counsel and provides on-demand services at strategic points in the process, including resolution and post-contract disputes. Kaye Scholer has a reputation for working well with consultants and for working efficiently and on budget. The firm works collaboratively as part of a team and puts its clients' interests first. The team is readily available to clients and prides itself on its ability to be a partner with clients and to expeditiously assist in handling unexpected developments.

• Mr.Tanenbaum is the founder and co-chair of a leading annual outsourcing law conference and of an annual green technology conference, and is invited as a repeat speaker at Sourcing Interests Group and other industry conferences on various topics, including outsourcing, green IT, data security, privacy, IP rights and contract issues.
  
  
• His expertise and leadership in outsourcing were recognized when he was selected as the neutral arbitrator to resolve a $30 million outsourcing dispute. In addition, PLI sponsors a monthly seminar series featuring lectures by Mr.Tanenbaum.
  
  
• He is the past president of the International Technology Law Association (formerly the Computer Law Association).

Additional Information

• Recent Representative IT and Outsourcing Engagements
  

• Patent Resources on the Web