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IN MEMORIAM
Mel Goldman
Mel Goldman joined the Firm in 1965 and became a partner in 1969. Simply put, Mel was a giant in the history of MoFo (although he would not like that notion). During his five-decade tenure, he helped build one of the top securities litigation practices in the nation. He was listed for over 25 years in Best Lawyers in America as a leader in the fields of Bet-the-Company Litigation, Criminal Defense White Collar, Securities Capital Markets Law, and Commercial Litigation. Because Mel was known for being a specialist in several areas, he attracted huge numbers of exceptional lawyers to the firm who wanted to work with him.
It is with great sadness that we bid farewell to our friend and former colleague Mel Goldman, who passed away at the age of 86 after a long battle with cancer. Mel grew up on the northwest side of Chicago in a neighborhood of Polish immigrants. He paid for his first years of college selling women’s shoes. He obtained his B.S. in accounting from DePaul University and graduated from Northwestern University School of Law after serving as managing editor of the Law Review and being elected to the Order of the Coif. He made his way to California in 1961 as a teaching assistant at Stanford Law School, graduating with a Master of Laws. At Stanford, he met his wife Bonnie (whose maiden name was also Goldman), and they married in 1963.
After teaching, he spent a year at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago but returned to San Francisco a year later, joining Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison to practice antitrust law. Soon after, Mel decided to leave Brobeck for Morrison, Foerster, Holloway, Clinton & Clark.
Mel’s experience with securities litigation was legendary; for decades he was one of a few go-to securities litigators in Silicon Valley and the country. He represented Memorex Corporation in the first large securities class action filed against a Silicon Valley high-tech company. He was involved in well over 100 securities cases, both in California and throughout the United States, representing numerous technology companies, financial institutions, and their directors and officers. His practice also focused on the defense of private and government antitrust actions. He was retained by Barnes & Noble to defend the company in an antitrust lawsuit brought by the American Booksellers Association and individual retail booksellers, and by The Coca-Cola Company to defend antitrust claims of transshippers, among many others. He was a tenacious, strategic advocate and exemplified the highest standards of civility.
Mel also personified the MoFo tradition of service to the legal profession through active participation in bar organizations. He lectured to numerous professional organizations in the areas of securities law and complex commercial litigation, including the Practising Law Institute, California Continuing Education of the Bar, San Diego Securities Regulation Institute, and American Law Institute and American Bar Association. He served as a lawyer representative from the Northern District of California at the Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference, was involved in the Northern District Historical Society, was a member of the American Law Institute, and was a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. He served as president of the Bar Association of San Francisco in 1995.
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It is impossible to know Mel Goldman well and not admire and enjoy him. All the external emblems of success in our line of work have come to Mel. He earned a sterling reputation for the quality and success of his advocacy as a pre-eminent figure in antitrust and securities litigation, and as a bar leader.
As a leader within the firm, Mel served in almost every conceivable leadership capacity. He was on the Management Committee from the early 1970s and was head of the Personnel Committee in the mid-1970s. Under his leadership, the firm hired a number of women who went on to become the first women partners at the firm. He served as chair of the Litigation Department from 1978 to 1982. In later years, he served on the Executive Committee to then-chair of the firm Steve Dunham. From 1992 to 2000, he served as chair of the Points Committee.
As Jack Londen wrote, before Mel’s passing, “It is impossible to know Mel Goldman well and not admire and enjoy him. All the external emblems of success in our line of work have come to Mel. He earned a sterling reputation for the quality and success of his advocacy as a pre-eminent figure in antitrust and securities litigation, and as a bar leader. That said, Mel’s greatest accomplishments are not external. He combines brilliance with great strategic judgment. He is very funny, with an ironic perspective on himself and almost everything else. I have known Mel for 42 years, and rarely have we had a discussion of any length that has not included a laugh or two. What is greatest about Mel is his character. He is completely unstinting in his attention to the matter at hand. Mel’s effort is never half-hearted. Those of us on Mel’s team could give him our best work, and he would always see something we had missed. He is a generous teacher, passing along insights and techniques that his teachers had given him. But the best lessons came from watching him work— with a focus and intensity that make words like diligence and dedication seem too weak.”
Mel was an extraordinary inspiration to so many of us. He will be greatly missed.
Senior Counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights
Win Now or Survive to Fight Another Day
The bombshell that was the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization stunned many in the United States and around the world. But Marc Hearron, Senior Counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, together with his colleagues, had been preparing.
Marc has fought to protect legal access to abortion for years. “After such a big shock to our jurisprudence, we’re now thinking long term about rebuilding reproductive rights in the U.S. from the ground up,” Marc says.
With so much uncertainty about state-by-state abortion restrictions, the Center is also fielding healthcare providers’ questions on complying with onerous constraints. “Partly, clients just want to know if someone will help if they get sued,” Marc says. “We tell them of the whole litany of lawyers already standing up for them, which gives them some assurance.”
Marc joined the Center in 2019 and now helps lead a team of 20 litigators challenging U.S. laws that restrict reproductive rights. Current cases contest state trigger bans (laws that banned abortion once Roe was overruled), as well as laws that forbid telemedicine and ban qualified clinicians from performing abortions. Marc and his colleagues, in partnership with Morrison Foerster, recently filed a groundbreaking case against the State of Texas on behalf of five women who were denied abortion care after facing severe and dangerous pregnancy complications.
The Center maintains offices worldwide and in New York and Washington, D.C., and often partners in litigation with other reproductive rights and justice organizations. The Center has long partnered with Morrison Foerster in litigation in Texas and Louisiana, including three cases that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We work in every continent to ensure maternal health and expand access to contraceptives and abortion. As the U.S. moves backward, Latin America and therest of the world are moving forward,” Marc says. “So, we’re looking to apply the lessons learned in Ireland, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico to the U.S.”
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We work in every continent to ensure maternal health and expand access to contraceptives and abortion. As the U.S. moves backward, Latin America and the rest of the world are moving forward..."
Bringing the fight to each battle
Marc brings seasoned firepower to each battle. In November 2021, Marc argued Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson in the U.S. Supreme Court, which challenged Texas SB 8, a six-week abortion ban enforced through civil lawsuits seeking $10,000 or more against anyone who performs or assists an outlawed abortion.
Then after the Dobbs ruling, Marc partnered with Morrison Foerster to maintain abortion access in Texas for as long as possible. “We got an injunction after Dobbs that allowed abortion providers to perform services for just three days, but that gave our clients and their patients some semblance of control in the middle of all the chaos,” Marc says.
Now, Marc and his team are addressing an ongoing health crisis. Hospitals are denying or delaying treatment to patients who have dangerous, emergent obstetrical conditions because of state abortion bans. Doctors in Texas fear up to 99 years of imprisonment if they provide an abortion in reliance on the state ban’s medical emergency exception, even though offering termination may be the standard of care.
Cross-border issues can also get tricky. “We are in the midst of the first state legislative sessions after Dobbs,” Marc says. “Some state legislatures are considering enacting laws that would prevent patients from accessing healthcare in a different state.”
Right now, Marc and his colleagues at the Center are engaging in what may be a decades-long process to restore abortion rights state by state and eventually at the federal level. Thankfully, he received the best training a lawyer can get.
The best legal training possible
“Pro bono work at MoFo is the best legal training a lawyer can get at a firm,” Marc says. “It can give you an opportunity to run the case, deal directly with clients, and even as an associate or junior partner, get to do the oral argument.”
Marc took on many pro bono cases regarding reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and other issues as a partner in MoFo’s Appellate & Supreme Court practice from 2015 to 2018 and an associate from 2007 to 2014.
In the Ninth Circuit, Marc successfully argued in National Abortion Federation v. Center for Medical Progress, which affirmed an injunction barring the release of secretly recorded videos activists leaked to smear abortion providers. “That was rewarding,” he says. “It was my first experience directly working with abortion advocates and seeing some of the underhanded tactics in the anti-abortion movement.”
In the Fifth Circuit case June Medical Services v. Gee, Marc represented Hope Medical Group, opposing a Louisiana law that would have shut down most of the state’s clinics. The case resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court victory in 2020.
At MoFo, Marc initially worked with Beth Brinkmann, Brian Matsui, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Ruth Borenstein was a great friend and mentor whom Marc knew would always listen and talk through any issues. Marc found mentorship in Joe Palmore, and Deanne Maynard was his most significant mentor.
“Working with such smart people, you must think very deeply,” Marc says. Eleven years of rigorous challenges from brilliant colleagues and mentors also sharpened Marc’s writing skills, which he now uses to help junior lawyers hone their writing.
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Pro bono work at MoFo is the best legal training a lawyer can get at a firm. It can give you an opportunity to run the case, deal directly with clients, and even as an associate or junior partner, get to do the oral argument.
Answer when opportunity knocks
Marc attributes his career success to a policy of saying yes to opportunities. “Jump at every opportunity, even if it’s a stretch,” Marc says. He once spent six weeks in Morrison Foerster’s Tokyo office helping people develop writing skills, jumping on a plane only five days after being asked.
He credits Deanne Maynard for his outlook after she offered him advice that Justice Stevens had given her: “When you are thinking about your next plan, don’t be thinking about two jobs down the road. Do what sounds fun.”
“If an opportunity sounds fun, go do it, and make the most out of it,” Marc explains. “You can’t predict where your opportunities will come from. But doing something rewarding right now is in your control. And if you’re enjoying your work, you’ll dive into it, and then you’ll be fine in the future.”
Working with many people in multiple practice areas at MoFo, including Michael Jacobs and Rachel Krevans, also gave Marc insight into different types of clients and areas of the law to build his career.
“Sometimes, the work may seem uninteresting, but it’s opening the door for the next opportunity. It’s building important relationships,” Marc says. It’s a lesson he benefited from firsthand after leaving MoFo.
Relationships open doors
After MoFo, Marc worked for a short time as Senior Counsel for Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Then, when an opportunity arose at the Center, true to his philosophy, Marc said yes, leading to the next phase of his career.
At the Center, Marc enjoys working with a team and interacting with clients, calling it the most rewarding part of the job. “I even discovered that depositions are really fun to take,” he jokes.
Yet Marc also brings a highly skilled perspective to the role, saying, “Much of the work is strategic. We’re thinking about how to shape the law. My federal appellate court expertise helps in preparing cases at the trial court level for successful appeals.”
Once again, Marc is relying on tactics he learned while at MoFo. “I interacted with intensely talented people at MoFo to develop strategies for turning what appears to be a likely loss into a win—or losing the right way, so you live to fight another day.”
Marc has many more days of fighting ahead. Currently, the Center needs help from lawyers with state court experience, as well as criminal lawyers to assist with compliance issues. Learn how you can get involved.
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New MoFo
Partners
We are thrilled to welcome this exceptional group of lawyers to MoFo
and call them our colleagues, having
worked closely with them over the past several weeks to complete the combination. This combination is a perfect match, both in terms of our joint focus on technology and life sciences clients, and our cultural alignment, in particular our shared commitment to diversity and inclusion.
– Eric McCrath, chair of Morrison Foerster
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