Friedman, Thomas

Michael J. Dalton is a partner in Donahue Gallagher Woods LLP, where he specializes in business and corporate transactions, and intellectual property law, with an emphasis on trademarks.  He represents a diverse business clientele, including retailers, real estate companies, and professional service providers.

Mr. Dalton has extensive experience in forming business entities, including corporations, partnerships, and limited liability companies, and in representing issuers and investors in debt and equity financings.  He also has extensive experience in business acquisitions and dispositions, having drafted and negotiated numerous asset purchase, stock purchase, and merger agreements for clients in a variety of industries.  In serving as outside corporate counsel to a number of Bay Area companies, he handles a broad range of matters for both start-up and more seasoned companies and provides a broad range of legal services related to business ownership, operations and management, including drafting and negotiating employment agreements, incentive compensation plans, joint venture agreements, and a variety of other contractual matters. 

Mr. Dalton has an active intellectual property practice emphasizing trademarks and unfair competition.  He counsels clients on trade name and trademark selection and infringement issues and has prosecuted hundreds of trademark federal trademark applications for both technology and non-technology companies.  Mr. Dalton has negotiated and drafted numerous agreements involving trademark rights, including trademark licensing agreements and trademark co-existence agreements.

Mr. Dalton has practiced with Donahue Gallagher Woods LLP since 1984, becoming a partner in 1991. He received his law degree in 1984 from Boalt Hall, University of California at Berkeley. During law school, he served as Supreme Court Editor of the California Law Review.  He earned a Master of Arts degree from U.C. Berkeley in 1979 and a Bachelor of Arts degree from U.C. Berkeley in 1977.

He is a member of the State Bar of California (Corporate and Intellectual Property Sections) and the Alameda County Bar Association, and sits on the Board of Directors of and serves as pro bono counsel to the Friends of the Oakland Public Library.  He is conversant in several foreign languages.  Since 1997, Mr. Dalton has served on the firm’s management committee and is currently the firm’s Chief Executive Officer.