DLA Piper DLA Piper sign in San Francisco (Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM)

DLA Piper has forged ahead on its hiring spree in California, bringing on three partners in San Francisco in recent weeks.

The three additions are John Maselli, a former Amazon.com in-house lawyer who came to the firm from Goodwin Procter, Michael Sitzman, a longtime patent litigator at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and Soumitra "Sam" Deka, a former intellectual property counsel at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer.

All three lawyers joined as partners and said they were attracted to DLA Piper's international platform.

"Many of my clients are already working with DLA, [which] has been involved in my deals and not necessarily the lead M&A capacity, or the lead M&A counsel as it involved in certain aspects of the representation," Maselli said. "I know my clients were very impressed with the DLA platform."

Maselli was most recently counsel in Goodwin's private equity business unit, where he worked for the past 4½ years. He focuses on advising private equity and venture capital clients on domestic and cross-border M&A deals.

While at Goodwin, he represented clients such as Sunstone Partners, Zendesk and Goldman Sachs on a number of acquisitions, according to his former firm.

Sitzman, who is now a partner in DLA Piper's San Francisco office, will also chair the firm's life sciences patent litigation practice.

"The real motivation and the real opportunity here is the is the life science opportunity," Sitzman said. "My focus and background are all in biopharma patent litigation. I've been doing that for a long time. DLA has been really committed, and is really committed to building a life science practice."

Also joining that practice is Deka, who focuses his practice on patent litigation with an emphasis on technology and life science industries

The work he and Sitzman do "seems like it fits with the firm's growth plan," Deka added. "So I think it's exciting to build that critical mass."

Sitzman was at Gibson Dunn for over two decades before moving to DLA Piper. During those years, he represented Allergan, Alza, Depomed, Genentech, Gilead, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Medicis, Merck Serono, Novo Nordisk and Ultragenyx, according to his firm bio.

"I can tell you that all of my clients are very excited about the opportunities and all very positive about the new the new opportunities and new prospects," Sitzman said. "DLA has got such a global footprint. … It's really amazing to be able to offer the clients so much coverage in terms of [their] needs, whether it be cross-border or cross-discipline."

Goodwin, Gibson Dunn and Arnold Porter could not immediately be reached for comment.

In a statement commenting on three partners' arrival. Stephen Cowan, managing partner of DLA Piper's San Francisco office, said the firm is always looking for opportunities to add "high-caliber people" to the team.

"We're doing innovative and collaborative work in San Francisco and Northern California as a whole and John, Mike and Sam's backgrounds and capabilities are a strong extension to our existing team," Cowan said.

DLA Piper said it now has about 99 lawyers and staff based in its San Francisco office, including 29 partners, 22 associates and 11 other lawyers. Throughout California, it has a total of 159 partners.

"We aim to become the leading global law firm, especially in critical sectors like technology and life sciences, and making sure we have a phenomenal team in place is key to that endeavor," Cowan continued. "Northern California is an important part of the firm's strategy and, as we grow, we're focused on adding top talent to enhance the quality work and forward-thinking know-how our clients have come to expect."

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly listed Cowan's title, and the number of lawyers in the San Francisco office.

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