Hirschberg, David L.

William R. Hill is a partner in Donahue Gallagher Woods LLP with twenty five years of experience focused primarily on litigation, intellectual property, commercial law, and employment-related disputes. His intellectual property practice emphasizes copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. He also represents retailers, manufacturers, and contractors in various commercial matters, and employers in work-related disputes before federal and state regulatory agencies and in mediations, arbitrations, and trials.

Mr. Hill is one of the firm’s chief software piracy litigators. He has prosecuted thousands of individuals and businesses charged with violating copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, negotiating settlements or filing lawsuits as appropriate. To date, his efforts with those of other Donahue Gallagher attorneys have resulted in recoveries of over $250 Million for software companies such as Microsoft, Autodesk, Novell, Symantec, Macromedia, Aldus, and Adobe, along with members of the Business Software Alliance and the Software & Information Industry Association.

His intellectual property practice extends to non-technology companies as well. He has successfully represented a major supermarket chain in trademark litigation over the use of a protected name. He has prosecuted, and defended clients in, numerous cases involving local, regional, and national infringement of intellectual property rights.

Mr. Hill also maintains an active commercial and employment litigation practice as well. He regularly advises and represents employers and employees in matters related to discrimination, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and wrongful termination. He has defended several multi-million dollar class action cases, including the recent Berger, et al. v. Property I.D., et al. class action in federal court in Los Angeles, where Mr. Hill obtained a dismissal of his client in a case ultimately settled with the other defendants for in excess of $25 Million. Mr. Hill has served as lead trial attorney in over 30 jury and non-jury trials in both state and federal court, in addition to handling numerous mediations and arbitrations.

Mr. Hill became associated with Donahue Gallagher in 1984, becoming a partner in 1991 and serving as the firm's CEO from 1998 through 2005. He earned his law degree from Boalt Hall, University of California at Berkeley in 1984. During law school, he externed at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. He received his Master of Arts degree in 1981 from Stanford University and his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1978 from U.C. Berkeley. He is a member of the State Bar of California and Alameda County Bar Association, and sits on the Advisory Board of Directors of Rebuilding Oakland, a nonprofit organization that rehabilitates low-income housing, and the Oakland Boys and Girls Club. Mr. Hill is also a member of the Litigation Counsel of America, an honorary society composed of less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers, membership in which is by invitation only. Along with several other members of the firm, Mr. Hill has, for the past six years and running, been named a “Super Lawyer” by San Francisco Magazine, an honor bestowed every year on just 5% of the lawyers practicing in Northern California.