I co-founded Xona Microfluidics in 2008, serving as a limited partner and the company's counsel; I've been CEO and counsel since 2020. A scientific co-founder and team lead the science and day-to-day operations; my role has been legal strategy and deal-making, along with hands-on contract work as it comes up — as an owner with a stake in the outcome, not as outside counsel billing by the hour. Over eighteen years that's meant everything from technology licensing and an international sublicense to partner buyouts, vendor and manufacturing agreements, and the master service agreements that govern the company's customer relationships.
That's illustrative, not a boundary on what I can take on. I'm licensed to practice law generally, and nearly two decades of hands-on deal work has taught me how to get up to speed quickly on a matter I haven't handled before — how to research it properly, where the real risk sits, and when it's smarter to bring in a specialist than to force it myself. I work with Lexis+ AI and other research tools to verify anything outside my day-to-day wheelhouse, and I maintain relationships with specialist counsel I can loop in when a deal calls for expertise beyond mine. If your matter doesn't look like something above, that's a conversation, not a disqualifier.
Earlier in my career, I spent more than a decade in litigation — business, real estate, construction, and insurance matters in California's state and federal courts — and, before that, five years as counsel to the California Legislature. I've taken and defended depositions, sat through mediations, and argued in the courtroom. I don't take litigation matters today, but that's exactly why my contracts hold up: I've watched indemnification clauses, liability caps, and dispute-resolution provisions get tested under fire, and I draft them to survive it, not just to close the deal.
I work best with technology startups and small businesses — companies that need seasoned legal judgment from someone who's sat on the ownership side of these decisions, not just advised on them from a distance, but without a full-time hire or a big-firm invoice. I know what it's like to weigh legal risk against payroll, runway, and the deal on the table.
