Our Team

Noam Cohen

Noam Cohen - Founding Partner

Noam Cohen’s practice focuses on companies in all stages of development. She has broad transactional experience advising emerging growth companies and more established technology companies in various areas. This includes formations and restructurings, equity and debt financings, strategic partnerships, and M&A.
She has also represented venture capital firms and leading investment banks in both private and public financings.

Prior to CGL, Noam worked in the Silicon Valley office of Goodwin Procter LLP.

Hannah Genton

Hannah Genton - Founding Partner

Hannah Genton is passionate about addressing the challenges of high-growth startups, mid to late-stage companies, and the investors that fund them. Her practice covers a broad range of corporate matters ranging from day-to-day legal governance issues to negotiating strategic transactions for companies in various stages of development. She has represented both companies and investors in venture capital financings, debt financings, and buyers and sellers in M&A transactions.

Prior to CGL, Hannah worked in the Silicon Valley office of Cooley LLP.

Jennifer Gumer

Jennifer Gumer - Partner

As a partner at CGL and our Regulatory and Compliance Practice Lead, Jennifer provides strategic counseling, practical advice, and expert advocacy to clients with production needs. She handles all interactions with federal, state, and local regulators who oversee product development, manufacturing, and marketing activities, including the FDA and Local Hemp Regulators.

Prior to joining CGL, Jennifer worked at the international law firm Gibson Dunn and Crutcher for more than six years. The focus of Jennifer’s practice at Gibson was FDA, healthcare, and life sciences matters.

Jessica Edwards

Jessica Edwards - Of Counsel

Jessica Edwards is a Of Counsel at CGL. As Corporate Counsel, Jessica advises clients on various corporate and capital markets transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, venture capital financings and asset acquisitions. From the bid process and initial due diligence to drafting and negotiating transaction documents and navigating regulatory approval when needed, Jessica’s experience covers all stages of the transaction process. In addition to her transactional practice, Jessica also assists clients with general corporate, securities and business matters, including entity selection, formation, fiduciary obligations, federal (’34 Act) and state securities reporting and compliance, joint ventures, partnership agreements and financing arrangements.

Prior to joining CGL, Jessica practiced at Bracewell LLP as a corporate and capital markets associate and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C. While at Bracewell and Wilson, Jessica counseled clients of all sizes, from startups to seasoned issuers, primarily in the banking, financial services, energy, healthcare and technology industries.

Jessica Clark

Jessica Clark - Of Counsel

Jessica Clark is Of Counsel at CGL, where she specializes in advising technology-driven clients on privacy, data security, and intellectual property matters. She helps clients identify and manage privacy and security risk; comply with state, federal, and global data protection laws; and develop and implement internal privacy and security compliance programs (including programs tailored for the CCPA/CPRA, GDPR, and COPPA). She has extensive experience drafting and negotiating privacy and IP terms in commercial contracts; counseling clients on privacy and IP implications in M&A and financing transactions; and advising clients on business strategy, marketing, and vendor management including strategies to effectively secure and capitalize on valuable IP rights. Among other things, she works with clients to prepare and negotiate employment and consulting agreements, IP license agreements, product development agreements, and asset purchase agreements.

Prior to joining CGL, Jessica spent six years working at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  in the Division of Privacy and Identity Protection, where she led numerous investigations and negotiated settlements relating to consumer privacy, data security, and credit reporting. She obtained her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Christine Gaudet - Operations Director

As a part of the internal operations team, Christine supports the firm by overseeing a full range of business functions and working with the executive team to develop processes that can accommodate growth. Christine has worked in legal operations management since 2016 and is an active member of the Association of Legal Administrators on the national and state levels. With a background in management and training, she is passionate about guiding teams to success through collaboration and strategic planning.

Chris Driscoll - Corporate of Counsel

Chris graduated first in his class from the University of Dublin, Trinity College (Ireland) in 2007, and received his Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley in 2011. Chris is a corporate transactional lawyer with a particular focus on representing entrepreneurs, startups, scale ups and investors. He routinely works with founders and boards of directors on all aspects of the business life cycle, including formation, equity and debt financings, corporate governance, commercial agreements, secondary sales, employment and IP matters, public offerings and M&A transactions.

After law school, Chris joined the New York office of Curtis-Mallet Colt & Mosle LLP (“Curtis”). At Curtis, he gained broad exposure to corporate work that included investment management, M&A capital markets and securities. In 2014, Chris joined the Palo Alto office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (“Wilson”). At Wilson, he developed a particular focus on representing emerging companies from formation through to exit event. In 2016, Chris re-joined Curtis in their London office and continued to advise both emerging companies and investors.

Most recently, Chris was the lead lawyer at BTomorrow Ventures Ltd, a corporate venture capital established by British American Tobacco to invest in companies that would transform the business. His responsibilities at BTomorrow Ventures included investment in target companies, managing a four-person legal team, hiring and coordinating outside counsel, internal governance, the protection of intellectual property and all other legal aspects relating to the set up and operation of the corporate venture unit. Outside of the law, Chris enjoys spending time with family, fly fishing, rugby and watching soccer. Chris is admitted to practice law in California and New York.

Heather B. Johnston - Commercial of Counsel

Heather Johnston is a Commercial Attorney with CGL. Heather works with a broad range of clients from early-stage startups to large public companies. She has worked with clients across a wide spectrum of industries, including technology, cybersecurity, advertising, and manufacturing. Heather advises on and negotiates all types of commercial transactions, including, by way of example, SaaS agreements, software licensing, distribution agreements, professional services and consulting agreements, marketing agreements, contract manufacturing agreements, and all matters related to procurement.

Further, Heather provides advice and guidance to product teams about legal issues related to new product and service developments. She has been working in the commercial transactions space for over 14 years. Heather is well- respected for pinpointing key issues and delivering holistic solutions that address the entire business context and balance the needs and perspectives of all relevant parties.

Prior to CGL, Heather worked in the capacity of general counsel for a large, publicly traded company covering an international business unit and North America. She started her legal career at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and O’Melveny & Myers.

Jo-Nell Labbieneti - Commercial of Counsel

Jo-Nell is a commercial counsel at CGL. She is a corporate and commercial generalist and focuses on drafting, reviewing and negotiating all manner of commercial agreements, including incoming and outgoing technology licensing, SaaS, DaaS and XaaS agreements, channel and partnership agreements, procurement agreements, employee-related agreements, and real and personal property leases for large and small information, data mining and technology companies.

Prior to joining CGL, Jo-Nell held various executive in-house legal positions in both large, well-known corporations and small startups, where she created contracting process improvements that substantially decreased contract execution time and increased customer satisfaction. She especially enjoys finding and implementing efficiencies in legal department processes and procedures. Jo-Nell currently resides in Palm Desert. She was born and raised on the shore of Connecticut, where she still returns every summer.

Lynn Malinoski - Of Counsel

Lynn Malinoski is Of Counsel at CGL, where she specializes in advising clients on intellectual property matters. Lynn has life sciences and MedTech intellectual property experience in private practice and in-house, as well as cross-functional experience including health care compliance matters. Lynn is passionate about learning technologies and working with business teams to protect innovations for clients, ranging from small start-ups to large multi-national corporations and supporting clients in developing, assessing, and implementing a patent strategy to build competitive and valuable intellectual property estates. Lynn leverages her high-level of financial acumen and business mindset together with her cross-functional experience to support clients in critical transactions including mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, licensing, and global IP enforcement. Lynn works with clients to develop and negotiate a broad scope of agreements, including consulting agreements, licenses, merger agreements, collaboration agreements, surgeon and non-surgeon product develop agreements, and asset purchase agreements. Lynn is creative and conscientious working in a dynamic environment, bringing good judgement, and common sense. She is a valued collaborator with experience building credibility and trust.

Before joining CGL, Lynn was Global Chief IP Counsel for the medical device company Synthes where she established an effective global IP organization and advised business leaders on strategic matters relating to IP and business issues. Synthes was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2012. After the acquisition, Lynn continued to provide IP and business advice to senior leadership teams and contributed to the businesses’ growth strategy through supporting due diligence activities resulting in acquisitions that added to top line revenue and pipeline value. Before going in-house, Lynn was a partner at Woodcock Washburn in Philadelphia, where she was co-chair of the Litigation Operations Group. Lynn obtained her law degree from Temple University School of Law and her LLM in Trial Advocacy from Temple University School of Law.

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