Lael D. Andara

Lael Andara is a member of Dickinson Wright’s Silicon Valley office, helping companies resolve high-stakes disputes without letting litigation run the business. For more than 20 years, he has represented technology companies and their leadership from early strategy through jury verdict.

Federal litigation is the most active part of his practice. Lael has litigated in federal courts in California, New York, Michigan, Florida, and Arizona, before the Ninth Circuit, and at the U.S. International Trade Commission. His cases involve copyright, trade secret, patent, trademark, privacy, and commercial disputes. He represents both plaintiffs and defendants, including international companies facing claims from major U.S. competitors. He advises on privacy policies, generative AI policies, and breach response to reduce exposure before claims arise.

A registered patent attorney and former head of a large firm’s eDiscovery practice, Lael knows discovery drives most litigation spend. He uses technology-assisted review and data analytics to cut costs and find risks in a client’s data before they become lawsuits. He focuses early on the evidence that decides the case, then negotiates from strength.

He is admitted in California, Montana, New York, and the District of Columbia. He is also admitted as a Patent Attorney with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

• Served as lead counsel for a Singapore company in federal trademark litigation in the Northern District of California, securing a unanimous jury verdict of $14.5 million, including statutory damages against individual defendants.
• Leveraged that verdict into a $28 million global settlement for his client that resolved parallel federal, California state, PRC, and USPTO proceedings after more than five years of litigation.
• Obtained summary judgment defeating a $20 million patent infringement claim involving consumer products.
• Secured dismissal with prejudice of federal civil rights and conspiracy claims against court-appointed professionals in the Northern District of California, ending the federal case at the pleading stage.
• Represents clients in CIPA and CCPA litigation involving website technologies and data collection practices and has served on data breach response teams.

• Co-Host, “Generative AI: Look Before You Jump,” DW FastTrack Podcast, Spotify and YouTube, July 2024
• Moderator, Best Practices for eDiscovery in Patent Litigation, NorCal eDiscovery & IG Retreat, July 2016
• Author, Security Considerations When Protecting Your Clients’ Data, LexisNexis Litigation Solutions, November 2015
• Speaker, Clear and Present Danger – Understanding Cyber Risks and the Benefits and Limitations of Cyber Insurance, Association of California Insurance Companies – General Counsel Seminar, July 2015
• Speaker, “Preserve or Perish” vs. “Destroy or Drown”: Managing Electronically Stored Information (ESI), LegalTech San Francisco, July 2015
• Speaker, Where Have We Been – Where Are We Going?, ARMA International: Executive Conference on Information Governance, March 2015
• Speaker, Partners in Crime? Securing Data Trusted to Outside Counsel and Vendors, ARMA International: Executive Conference on Information Governance, March 2015
• Speaker, Laying the Foundation for Strategic Information Governance, ARMA International: Executive Conference on Information Governance, March 2015
• Speaker, Proving Your Trade Secrets Case: A Mock Preliminary Injunction Hearing, American Bar Association: National Symposium on Technology in Labor and Employment Law, March 2015 with NDCA Magistrate Laurel Beeler.
• Speaker, In-House eDiscovery – Is It Right For You?, ILTA/ARMA, October 2014
• Speaker, ESI Essentials: Honing Technical Skills to Become a Key E-Discovery Player, ACEDS/BarBri, October 2014
• Speaker, Exploiting E-Discovery Rules to Protect Your Firm and Gain the Upper Hand, ACEDS/BarBri, October 2014
• Speaker, Going Through the Motions: Staging a Thorough Rule 26 ‘Meet-and-Confer’, ACEDS/BarBri, April 2014
• Speaker, Protecting Sensitive Data from Prying Eyes and Imperfect Processes, ACEDS/BarBri, April 2014
• Speaker, Mock Hearing: The Great E-Discovery Cost-Shifting, ACEDS/BarBri, October 2013
• Speaker, Ignorance Is Risk: Impact of NSA Monitoring Technologies On Attorney-Client Communications, LexisNexis, August 2013
• Speaker, eDiscovery Goals: Considering Why Before How, Laguna Beach eDiscovery Retreat, July 2013
• Speaker, Traversing ‘The Triangle’ – Best Practices for Managing and Improving Law Firm-Client-Service Provider Relationships, ACEDS/BarBri, April 2013
• Speaker, Protecting vs Projecting – Best Practices for the Open Innovation Era, Presentation at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, December 2012
• Author, eDiscovery Driving Litigation Costs, Daily Journal, October 2012
• Speaker, Penny Wise, Litigation Foolish: Understanding the Big Picture of Self Collection, Intermountain eDiscovery 2012, September 2012
• Speaker, A New Discovery: How Leveraging eDiscovery Tools Can Reduce the Time & Money Spent on a Lawsuit, Smart Business Northern California, July 2012
• Speaker, Real Life Analytics: Search Optimization for Collection/Preservation, Carmel Valley eDiscovery Retreat, July 2012
• Speaker, A Complete Guide to PMQ (a.k.a. PMK) Depositions, Continuing Education of the Bar, June 2012
• Speaker, eDiscovery: Leveraging I.T. in Litigation, Presentation at the Harvard Club in New York, May 2012
• Speaker, Can’t We All Just Get Along: Reaching Consensus with Opposing Parties, Carmel Valley eDiscovery Retreat
• Speaker, The Mental Virtues of the eDiscovery Professional, ACEDS/BarBri