Current Employment Position(s)

Partner

Lawyer Overview

Victoria A. Cundiff is a Litigation partner at Paul Hastings. She helps clients acquire, protect, and maximize value from intellectual property. Her clients include emerging companies, joint ventures, and Fortune 50 companies in a variety of industries, including software, media, financial services, insurance, pharmaceutical, chemicals, marketing, and sales and distribution organizations. Ms. Cundiff chairs the firm’s global trade secrets practice. Her work often focuses on issues arising at the intersection of intellectual property law and employment law. She advises companies on legal considerations when employees move between competitors; on fashioning restrictive covenant and intellectual property ownership agreements for use in multiple jurisdictions; and on designing confidential investigation procedures and verification protocols for resolving intellectual property use and ownership disputes outside of court. She also advises clients on conducting lawful competitive intelligence and on evaluating, acquiring, protecting and licensing intellectual property rights. Ms. Cundiff has extensive litigation experience, particularly in seeking or opposing immediate injunctive relief. She is a member of the firm’s Trial Evaluation Committee, which helps review each case the firm takes to trial. She has successfully tried or resolved trade secrets, inevitable disclosure, intellectual property ownership, copyright, licensing, and other intellectual property and commercial disputes in state and federal courts throughout the United States and before a variety of arbitration and mediation tribunals. She also advises on such disputes internationally and coordinates multi-jurisdictional litigation. Ms. Cundiff has written widely in the intellectual property field, including "Preventing The Inevitable: How Thinking About What Might Happen Can Help Ensure That It Won't", "International Issues in Trade Secrets Law", "The New York Law of Trade Secrets: A Practical Guide," Protecting Computer Software as a Trade Secret", "Hiring Competitor’s Employees: A Trade Secrets Perspective", "The Departing Employee Toolbox", and "How to Place Your Intellectual Property at Risk". Her articles have been published or are pending release in publications including the Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal; IDEA®: The Intellectual Property Law Review; The New York Business Law Journal; The Computer Lawyer; The New York Law Journal; The Employee Relations Law Journal, and a variety of course books published by the Practicing Law Institute. She has been quoted in publications including The New York Times, Investment Dealer's Digest, and Business 2.0. She is on the Board of Editors of Internet Law & Strategy. Ms. Cundiff is a visiting lecturer in law at Yale Law School where she teaches intellectual property law. Ms. Cundiff is a member of the Executive Committee of the New York State Bar Association's Intellectual Property Section and is the past Chair of that section. She serves as liaison to the New York State Bar Association's Alternative Dispute Resolution Section. She is a member of the Intellectual Proprety Owners Associations Committee on Trade Secrets and is a member of the Practicing Law Institute's Advisory Committee on Intellectual Property Law. She is a fellow of the New York and American Bar Foundations, is listed in The Best Lawyers in America; Chambers; Legal 500; and New York Super Lawyers, and has been named one of the top 50 Female Super Lawyers in New York each year since 2006 (see www.superlawyers.com for criteria). She was an invited civilian guest at the U.S. Army War College National Security Seminar. Ms. Cundiff has served as the chair of her firm’s five member Partnership Evaluation Committee and as chair of the New York litigation department. Ms. Cundiff received her B.A. degree from the University of Denver (summa cum laude), where she was a Boettcher Foundation Scholar, and her J.D. degree from Yale Law School. She is on the advisory board of the Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Yale Law School New York Alumni Association. She is a founding member of the Print Club of New York.

Areas of Practice

• Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals
• Copyright
• Franchise and Distribution
• Intellectual Property
• IP Transactions and Licensing
• IT/eCommerce
• Litigation
• Trade Secrets

West Practice Categories

Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical Products, Copyrights, Business & Commercial Law, Franchising, Intellectual Property Law, Technology Licensing, Transactions, Science & Technology Law, Electronic Commerce, Litigation & Appeals, Trade Secrets

Bar Admissions

• New York, 1981
• District of Columbia

Education

• Yale Law School, New Haven, Connecticut, 1980
  J.D.
• University of Denver, 1977
  B.A.

Address

Park Avenue Tower
75 E. 55th Street
First Floor
New York, NY 10022

Phones

(212) 318-6030

Faxes

(212) 230-7643

Emails

Contact Us

Websites

http://www.paulhastings.com