About:

Will Dickinson focuses his fractional general counsel practice on negotiating technology transactions for fast-paced sales organizations, managing the legal needs for software sales teams, managing clients’ large trademark portfolios, and augmenting the commercial and intellectual property capabilities of clients’ in-house legal departments.

Will has experience in:

• Technology transactions and other commercial-contract negotiations
• Intellectual property licensing
• Trademark and copyright prosecution
• Intellectual property portfolio management and counseling
• Intellectual property litigation
• Commercial dispute resolution
• Trademark Trial and Appeal Board litigation
• Domain-name (UDRP) arbitration
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) counseling and registration

Throughout his career, Will has helped clients ranging from growth-oriented sales organizations of all sizes, to Fortune 500 companies with large intellectual property portfolios, to startups and mid-sized businesses with important intellectual property assets, to state agencies with mission-critical IT systems.

Will has been named among Virginia’s “Legal Elite” by Virginia Business magazine, a “Rising Star” and a “Super Lawyer” by Virginia Super Lawyers, a 2019 “Up and Coming Lawyer” by Virginia Lawyers Weekly, named in Best Lawyers in America for Trade Secrets Law and Intellectual Property Litigation, named “Lawyer of the Year” for Trade Secrets in the Norfolk Region, and named a Richmond Times Dispatch “Readers’ Choice Lawyer.”

Prior to joining Kaleo Legal, Will practiced at an Am Law 200 law firm headquartered in Richmond, Virginia. Will received his law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Wake Forest Law Review. He earned his undergraduate degree from Wake Forest University, with a Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa.

Will has served on the Sports Backers President’s Council, as the Chair of the Wake Forest University School of Law Rose Council, on the Executive Committee of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Richmond Light the Night Walk, on the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce’s IMPACT Award Committee, and as a mentor at Startup Virginia. He is a member of the American Bar Association, Virginia Bar Association, Richmond Bar Association, and the Greater Richmond Intellectual Property Law Association.

Awards & Honors: Best Lawyers 2024 Edition

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About:

Shep is not your traditional litigator. He is a true trial lawyer with more than 25 years of experience trying and winning big cases before juries in Hampton Roads and around the country. Shep started his career as an Assistant and then Deputy Commonwealth Attorney in Virginia Beach where he was in court every day, trying thousands of cases. Ultimately, Shep supervised the presentation of all violent crime in Virginia Beach, trying many rape, robbery and murder trials himself.  Shep then joined Kaufman and Canoles in Norfolk, Virginia, spending 10 years there as an associate and equity partner in the litigation section. Shep focused on product liability, toxic tort commercial litigation, civil rights litigation, including Section 1983 cases and municipal matters, and personal injury and traumatic brain injury cases.  His representations included the defense of police officers in excessive force and wrongful death cases, the defense of hotels and businesses in premises liability cases, and the defense of a video producer in unauthorized use of name and image cases.

Shep then joined McGuireWoods where he continued his product liability and civil rights practice, focusing on the defense of asbestos related mesothelioma and lung cancer cases.  For the last 10 years, Shep has served as national coordinating counsel for an American automobile manufacturer, managing the scientific defense of thousands of asbestos-related claims. Shep serves as Daubert/Frye counsel in asbestos litigation and as lead trial counsel throughout the country, obtaining numerous defense verdicts, including in Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina and Arkansas.  Shep joined our firm in 2018.

Awards & Honors: Best Lawyers 2024 Edition

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About:

Ryan focuses his practice on state and federal court litigation in Virginia and the District of Columbia.  Ryan developed his practice at two AmLaw 100 law firms.  At Arnold & Porter in Washington, DC, Ryan defended a company involved in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill against class action claims by businesses allegedly injured by the spill.  Additionally, he maintained an active pro bono practice, including co-drafting an amicus curiae brief to the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the American Bar Association.

After moving to Norfolk, Ryan joined McGuireWoods’ commercial litigation department, where he represented clients in a wide variety of industries – from Fortune 100 financial institutions to local entrepreneurs – at all levels of the Virginia state and federal court system.  For every case, Ryan focused on developing an assertive and effective litigation strategy in line with each client’s business goals, and he continues to do so as a member of Kaleo Legal.

Ryan graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a Dillard Fellow for Legal Research & Writing.  Prior to attending law school, Ryan earned his B.A. in art history from the College of William & Mary and his M.A. in art history from the University of Delaware.  In the course of his art history studies, Ryan held internships at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and the Guggenheim Foundation in Venice, Italy.

Ryan is a member of the American Bar Association and the Norfolk & Portsmouth Bar Association.  He is admitted to practice before the courts of Virginia and the District of Columbia; US District Courts for the Eastern District of Virginia, Western District of Virginia, and the District of Columbia; the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia; and the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

Years of Experience: 10

Past Work Experience: McGuireWoods LLP, Arnold & Porter LLP

Professional Affiliations: American Bar Association, Norfolk Portsmouth Bar Association

Awards & Honors: Dillard Fellow for Legal Research & Writing

Bar Admissions: Virginia, District of Columbia

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