Sidley Austin has opened an office in San Diego with a team of five partners, including one the firm hired recently from Goodwin Procter. 

The office is the Chicago’s firm’s fifth in the Sunshine State, where it already has more than 350 lawyers and business professionals across Century City, Los Angeles, Palo Alto and San Francisco. 

M&A and ECVC partner Jon Olsen, whose client roster includes San Diego-based companies like Qualcomm and Illumina, moved over from Goodwin last month ahead of the launch. 

Joining him in the new office are a quartet of Sidley partners who practise across commercial disputes, labour and employment, finance and ECVC, as well as three managing associates and further lawyers and support staff. 

Mike Schmidtberger, Sidley’s executive committee chair, said the firm had served “numerous marquee San Diego companies” over the years and was looking to deepen those relationships. 

“We believe our platform and our capabilities in the sectors important to this market will add value to the growing business ecosystem,” he added. 

Olsen advises multinationals as well as emerging companies in the tech and life sciences sectors on acquisitions, dispositions and joint ventures. He has acted for chipmaker Qualcomm in numerous deals, including its $1.4bn acquisition of CPU design company Nuvia in 2021, and has also advised biotech company Illumina on various acquisitions and its joint venture with Deerfield Management. He joined Goodwin at the start of last year from DLA Piper’s San Diego office, working remotely while at the firm, which doesn’t have a base in the city. 

Joining him in San Diego are veteran Sidley partners Chris Egleson and Eric Kauffman alongside partners Cindy Lovering and James Lu, both relatively recent recruits to the firm from Cooley. 

Egleson is a partner in Sidley’s commerical litigation and disputes group and represents clients in California and across the US in appellate and trial courts and in crisis situations.

Meantime Kauffman advises clients in the tech and life sciences sectors and their private equity and venture capital sponsors on employment matters, while Lovering represents lenders and agents on fund finance transactions, and Lu acts for tech and life sciences companies and their investors on financings, securities offerings, M&A and joint ventures. Lu has advised San Diego-based Crown Biosciences on several acquisitions and has also acted for Chinese life sciences companies Akeso and EpimAb on equity financings and collaborations with Chinese and US businesses. 

“San Diego is a dynamic market, with a strong nucleus of life sciences and technology companies, making our entry into San Diego a natural fit for our expansion strategy,” said Yvette Ostolaza, Sidley’s management committee chair. 

Ostolaza added that the firm saw potential to recruit high-calibre talent in the city and “provide a differentiated level of service to clients in this growing market”.

San Diego’s strengths across tech, life sciences and pharmaceuticals as well as real estate and international trade drew Greenberg Traurig to open an office there last year with a team led by four shareholders. 

Meantime, 2,300-lawyer Sidley, which pulled in revenue of $3.1bn in 2023, also boosted its Century City office in March with the hire of finance partner Peter Burke from Paul Hastings. Labour and employment partner Rebecca Stuart and venture funds partner Shane Goudey have joined the Palo Alto office recently from Wilson Sonsini and Cooley respectively.